Originally published via GlobeNewswire on June 10, 2019. This article summarizes the announcement for a DevOps engineering audience.
BreakFree Solutions Launches RapidDeploy for AKS
BreakFree Solutions, a professional services firm specializing in cloud, DevOps, and automation for enterprise IT, announced the launch of BreakFree RapidDeploy for AKS — a structured engagement designed to deploy, operationalize, and onboard development teams onto Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) within a compressed timeframe of approximately 10 weeks.
What Is Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)?
Azure Kubernetes Services is Microsoft Azure’s fully managed Kubernetes offering. It abstracts much of the control-plane complexity — including cluster provisioning, upgrades, and scaling — so teams can focus on deploying and operating containerized workloads rather than managing Kubernetes infrastructure. For enterprises pursuing cloud-native development and mature DevOps practices, AKS provides a production-ready foundation with built-in security and integration with Azure’s broader ecosystem.
Why Operationalizing AKS Is Non-Trivial
While AKS simplifies Kubernetes cluster management, getting the platform fully operational for enterprise development teams is a different challenge. A production-grade AKS environment typically requires:
- Establishing networking foundations (virtual networks, ingress controllers, private endpoints)
- Configuring identity and access management (Azure Active Directory integration, RBAC)
- Implementing security controls (Pod Security policies, Azure Policy, secrets management)
- Building CI/CD pipelines integrated with the cluster
- Setting up monitoring, logging, and alerting stacks
- Defining standard operating procedures and runbooks for operations teams
- Onboarding and upskilling development teams unfamiliar with container-native patterns
Without the right foundational components in place — or without a DevOps-oriented IT culture — these efforts can stall, delaying the actual business value of the platform.
“The real value of the AKS platform is in the transition of developers and the associated application architectures to build cloud-native workloads. The longer you spend trying to operationalize the AKS development platform, you delay the ability to actually develop effectively on cloud.”
— Bradley Clerkin, CTO, BreakFree Solutions
How RapidDeploy for AKS Works
BreakFree RapidDeploy for AKS is a time-boxed professional services engagement built around several key delivery mechanisms:
- Automation: Infrastructure-as-code and scripted provisioning reduce manual configuration and improve repeatability.
- Reference architectures: Pre-validated AKS architecture patterns provide a proven starting point, avoiding common design pitfalls.
- Standard operating procedures: Documented runbooks ensure operations teams can manage the platform after the engagement ends.
- Structured workshops: Hands-on sessions accelerate knowledge transfer to the customer’s engineering and operations staff.
- Agile scrum delivery: Iterative sprints provide transparency, collaboration, and regular deliverable checkpoints throughout the 10-week engagement.
A key differentiator emphasized by BreakFree is the pairing model — customer engineers work alongside BreakFree’s AKS subject matter experts during deployment, enabling knowledge transfer in context rather than through documentation alone.
“The effort associated with a full AKS deployment may be complicated depending on your IT group’s current state and skills. But the value and the benefits of containers and establishing an AKS development platform will certainly justify these efforts for enterprises looking to modernize software development.”
— Mitch Northcutt, SVP, BreakFree Solutions
Target Audience and Use Cases
RapidDeploy for AKS is positioned for enterprise IT organizations that:
- Have committed to AKS as their container platform but lack internal Kubernetes expertise at scale
- Want to move quickly without compromising security or operational readiness
- Need to onboard multiple development teams onto a shared platform with governance guardrails in place
- Are modernizing legacy application architectures toward cloud-native, containerized workloads
About BreakFree Solutions
BreakFree Solutions is an enterprise IT professional services firm with expertise in cloud-native design, infrastructure automation, continuous deployment, DevOps, and Agile delivery. At the time of this announcement, BreakFree Solutions operated as a division of Fifth Third Bank, serving the commercial sector. Fifth Third Bancorp is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol FITB.
Source: GlobeNewswire, June 10, 2019.