Ramboll SHAIR
Platform Engineering / Developer Enablement
Executive brief
Infrastructure-as-Code with Terraform
Ramboll SHAIR runs ML workflows fed by IoT sensors to publish hourly air-quality data via a REST API. Epsilon implemented Terraform IaC and automation pipelines that enabled fully ephemeral non-production stacks and scheduled shutdowns. This reduced waste, improved agility, and delivered major monthly savings.
Monthly infrastructure savings
58%
within 60 days
Non-production spend reduction
80%
post-ephemeral rollout
Environment provisioning time
25 minutes
after automation
Reduced monthly infrastructure spend by over 50%
On-demand dev/staging environments built and destroyed automatically
Improved provisioning speed and reduced configuration drift
Engagement shape
Duration
8 wks
Phases
3
Deliverables
4
Monthly infrastructure savings
58%
How it ran
Terraform modeling + automation rollout + right-sizing
Ramboll SHAIR cut cloud costs dramatically by moving to Terraform-driven, ephemeral environments with automated provisioning and teardown.
Starting position
What Ramboll SHAIR was working against.
The team needed to minimize cloud spend while maintaining availability, but lacked repeatable infrastructure patterns and cost-efficient environment control.
Constraints we worked inside
3 in playEvery one of these ruled an easier option out. They are the reason the approach looks the way it does.
Tight startup budgets and resource caps
Unclear utilization patterns across IaaS resources
Manual infrastructure changes causing drift
What had to be true to finish
3 goalsAgreed up front, so the engagement could be called finished on evidence instead of opinion.
Model infrastructure as code in Terraform
Enable on-demand, ephemeral non-production environments
Automate build/tear-down workflows to eliminate idle spend
Industry context
Platform Engineering
Developer Enablement
A San Francisco clean-air startup using IoT + ML to deliver hourly air-quality data via API.
Approach
How the work was sequenced.
Epsilon implemented Terraform IaC, automated pipelines, and environment lifecycle controls to eliminate idle infrastructure spend.
Delivery track
Segment width reflects the number of workstreams inside each phase — where the engagement actually spent its effort.
Terraform foundations
3 workstreams
Modularized infrastructure definitions for reuse across environments
Standardized tagging and cost attribution
Established reviewable, version-controlled change workflow
Ephemeral environments + automation
3 workstreams
Built pipelines to provision and destroy environments on-demand
Separated persistent data concerns from ephemeral compute layers
Enabled scheduled shutdowns for non-critical stacks
Cost guardrails and right-sizing
3 workstreams
Right-sized baseline compute to match real usage patterns
Added guardrails to prevent accidental cost spikes
Improved visibility into top spend drivers by environment
What the team kept
Artefacts handed over at the end of the engagement — owned and operable by Ramboll SHAIR without us.
Terraform modules and environment stacks
Automation pipelines for apply/destroy
Cost attribution standards and tagging policy
Right-sizing recommendations + guardrail policies
Results
What actually moved.
The platform became reproducible, agile, and significantly cheaper to operate.
Outcome ledger
Every figure we measured on this engagement, including the ones that are ranges rather than headlines.
Monthly infrastructure savings
Reasonable placeholder to be confirmed
58%
within 60 daysNon-production spend reduction
Dev/stage no longer 24/7
80%
post-ephemeral rolloutEnvironment provisioning time
Previously 2–3 days (placeholder)
25 minutes
after automationWhat changed day to day
The part of the result that never shows up in a dashboard, but is the reason the numbers held.
Stopped paying for idle development and staging stacks
Spun environments up for work and tore them down automatically
Reduced drift and improved repeatability for deployments
Your turn
Run this play with your team.
Ramboll SHAIR cut cloud costs dramatically by moving to Terraform-driven, ephemeral environments with automated provisioning and teardown. If that shape looks familiar, the first conversation is a working session, not a pitch.
Terraform Infrastructure as Code
Cost optimization
Automation pipelines
Ephemeral environment design
Cloud governance
What Ramboll SHAIR got
Monthly infrastructure savings
58%
within 60 days
Non-production spend reduction
80%
post-ephemeral rollout
Environment provisioning time
25 minutes
after automation