Modernizing public sector infrastructure: the Ineris digital transformation

The friction of legacy outsourcing

Modernizing infrastructure within a public institution requires balancing high security requirements with human-sized engineering teams. Ineris (Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques) manages a critical application park that demands both resilience and agility. This narrative explores how Ineris transitioned from a laborious "Build" process to a streamlined Platform Engineering model to halve costs while accelerating digital transformation.

Before adopting Upsun, Ineris relied on a traditional "infogéreur" model. This infrastructure was built on virtual machines that were difficult to duplicate, leading to an absence of modern Continuous Integration (CI) tools. Every minor change required a long, rigid process involving multiple actors. The internal DSI team found themselves spending more time managing the provider than producing code.

"We were in processes that were quite heavy, laborious, and expensive. There was no real automation." — Thomas BARRIERE, DSI at Ineris

Standardizing the stack

Ineris selected Upsun through a technical Proof of Value (POV) to democratize Platform Engineering across their organization. For a DSI with limited headcount, Upsun acts as a force multiplier by providing advanced container orchestration without the overhead of managing Kubernetes clusters.

The migration involved a shift from "classic VM" logic to "Containers as Code." While the initial learning curve involved mastering YAML configurations, the Upsun migration assistance team provided the architectural validation necessary to secure the first batch of sites. Once the initial template was validated, subsequent migrations became a standardized process.

"Upsun has been a transformation accelerator. It allowed us to do DevOps without the extremely expensive and laborious part of setting up these platforms." - Thomas BARRIERE, DSI at Ineris

Technical fluidity and business impact

The transition transformed the economic model of web management at Ineris. By moving to Infrastructure as Code, the cost to implement new environments was divided by 2. Major version upgrades, such as moving from Drupal 10 to 11, shifted from being expensive, high-risk projects to rapid, routine tasks.

The technical teams report a significant improvement in operational quality through Preview environments. The ability to clone production data instantly to test new features in parallel allows for validation without infrastructure overhead or delays.

"Once the principle is understood, migrating a site becomes very simple; it is less than 1 week of work." - Adrien Delcourt, Developer at Ineris

Eliminating deployment toil

Ineris has moved from a reactive support model to a proactive partnership. Upsun now functions as an extension of the Ineris team, automatically handling security patches and performance monitoring. This autonomy extends to their third-party partners; web agencies can now deploy and test independently through the Ineris logic forge, freeing internal DSI resources for strategic projects.

Ultimately, Ineris has replaced architectural fear with execution speed. They have achieved a level of automation and delivery fluidity 10x superior to their previous model.

"We went from a laborious delivery process to a level of automation and fluidity 10 times higher." - Thomas BARRIERE, DSI at Ineris

When your DSI is constrained by rigid outsourcing and rising maintenance costs, you lose the ability to innovate. Upsun serves as the strategic engine that automates infrastructure management, allowing your team to deploy 10x faster while halving operational overhead.