Monthly change freezes. Jira tickets for a DNS record. Your developers deserve better.

An internal developer platform is a curated set of tools and APIs that lets your engineering teams provision infrastructure, run CI/CD pipelines, and deploy applications without depending on a central ops team for every change. Organizations move to a platform model when ticket queues become a bottleneck: change freezes, slow deployments, and developer frustration caused by waiting for manual approvals. As AI accelerates code generation, the decisive question shifts from how code gets written to who controls the runtime where it runs. A well-operated platform replaces ticket friction with self-service backed by guardrails and SLAs, while keeping your organization in control of its own deployment infrastructure.

The blueprint uses six open-source components: GitLab for source control and CI/CD, Crossplane for self-service cloud infrastructure provisioning, OpenTofu for infrastructure as code, ArgoCD for GitOps continuous delivery, OpenBao for secrets and certificate management, and Kubernetes as the runtime layer. VSHN is a GitLab Select Partner, an official Crossplane commercial vendor, and Switzerland's first CNCF Kubernetes Certified Service Provider since 2016. All components run on Swiss infrastructure.

Yes, and most engagements do. The blueprint describes where a platform ends up, not what you have to buy on day one. A common first step is a managed GitLab instance with self-hosted runners and infrastructure as code for the resources around it, which delivers self-service CI/CD before any Kubernetes cluster exists. Crossplane, ArgoCD, and a container runtime get added as teams are ready for them. Kubernetes is not a prerequisite for starting. VSHN scopes each phase separately so you can evaluate the result before committing to the next one.

VSHN provides a written SLA for platform operations covering incident response times and monitoring coverage. Managed platform components can reach a 99.99% availability SLA on Swiss infrastructure when deployed on Cloudscale or Exoscale in a high-availability configuration. Not every component is highly available by default, and some, container registries being the common example, need a specific architecture or a cloud provider service to get there. The assessment phase identifies which parts of your platform genuinely need high availability and what each one costs, so the SLA you sign matches the architecture you get. VSHN has operated production infrastructure for regulated Swiss organizations since 2014.

No. Support coverage is chosen per engagement and priced separately from platform operations, so you do not pay for a service level you do not need. Options range from business-hours support with best-effort out-of-hours handling to full 24/7 coverage with guaranteed response times and phone escalation. The two can be combined: several regulated customers run business-hours support year-round and add scheduled 24/7 coverage for defined release or migration weekends. It is also common to put production runtime on 24/7 while build tooling stays on business hours, because a stalled pipeline at 3am is not an incident.

Platform engineering engagements at VSHN are quoted in CHF and priced by scope: the build phase covers architecture, component setup, and team onboarding; the operations phase is a recurring monthly fee covering monitoring, incident response, upgrades, and quarterly reviews at the support coverage you choose. Because the blueprint assembles established open-source components rather than building a platform from scratch, standing up a first component is typically measured in days of engineering, not a six-figure integration project. Running your own platform operations requires three to six full-time engineers at CHF 150,000 to 200,000 each per year. VSHN delivers equivalent coverage for significantly less because the operations cost is shared across multiple clients. Contact us for a scoped estimate.

VSHN operates platforms on Cloudscale and Exoscale (Swiss cloud providers with data centers in Switzerland), on your own Azure or AWS tenant, or on-premises. For organizations that need a hyperscaler for strategic reasons (e.g., Azure because of a data platform like Databricks), VSHN builds and operates the developer platform inside your tenant so you keep full control. For organizations that want to avoid hyperscaler dependency entirely, Cloudscale and Exoscale provide Swiss data residency with no CLOUD Act exposure. The blueprint works on any infrastructure.

The split is written down before the build starts. In a typical Azure or AWS tenant engagement, your organization owns the tenant itself, the subscription structure, the identity provider, and the security and network policies your compliance team mandates. VSHN owns the infrastructure as code that creates the platform resources, the platform components on top, and their day-to-day operation. This boundary is where tenant-based projects usually lose time, so the assessment phase produces a written responsibility matrix instead of leaving it to be discovered during implementation.

Yes. VSHN operates platforms behind IP allowlists, on private networking, with no public ingress on management interfaces. CI/CD runners can be confined to an egress allowlist or pointed at an internal package and container mirror, so builds never pull directly from public registries. For banks, insurers, and healthcare organizations this is frequently the requirement that rules out SaaS CI/CD entirely. The allowlist and mirror strategy is defined during the assessment phase, because retrofitting network restrictions onto working pipelines means rebuilding them.

Yes. VSHN configures automated encrypted backups for all stateful platform components, including GitLab repositories and configuration, OpenBao secrets backends, and cluster state. Backups are stored on Swiss-hosted object storage or in your cloud tenant. VSHN performs quarterly restore drills with documented runbooks so recovery procedures are tested and verified before you need them, not only after an incident forces the issue.

Yes. VSHN is a GitLab Select Partner, which means VSHN engineers have direct access to GitLab support escalation paths and partner training programs. Customers who run GitLab through VSHN benefit from this relationship when they need support on complex GitLab questions that go beyond standard documentation. VSHN has operated GitLab for Swiss organizations since 2015 and manages GitLab for regulated customers including Finnova and the Swiss Federal Archives. Service details, SLAs, and pricing are on gitlab.ch.

Either works. As a GitLab Select Partner, VSHN can resell GitLab subscriptions including the Premium and Ultimate tiers, or operate an instance on a license your organization already holds. Regulated organizations usually land on Ultimate, because security scanning, compliance frameworks, and audit reporting are Ultimate features rather than Premium ones. The license cost is separate from the VSHN operations fee and is quoted as its own line item, so you always see what goes to GitLab and what goes to VSHN.

Crossplane is installed on your Kubernetes cluster and connects to cloud provider APIs. VSHN, listed as an official Crossplane commercial vendor, builds composite resource definitions so your developers can provision a managed PostgreSQL database or an S3 bucket through a pull request without contacting the infrastructure team. Crossplane supports any cloud provider. VSHN's Crossplane production experience covers Cloudscale and Exoscale providers specifically, with Azure and other providers supported through OpenTofu for the landing zone layer. More on the Crossplane practice: crossplane.ch.

VSHN is ISO 27001 certified and was Switzerland's first CNCF Kubernetes Certified Service Provider in 2016. VSHN operates production infrastructure for regulated organizations including HIN, which serves over 90% of Swiss healthcare stakeholders, Finnova and acrevis in Swiss banking, and the Swiss Federal Archives. When your compliance team or auditors ask for evidence of operational rigor, you can point to verifiable certifications and named Swiss references rather than compiling documentation from scratch.

AI coding assistants accelerate application code, but platform architecture remains a human skill. Industry analysis rates AI impact on code generation as medium and on architecture as low: AI can generate a Terraform file or a Kubernetes manifest, but it cannot design the abstraction layer, the access policies, the upgrade strategy, or the incident response runbooks that make a platform production-grade. The value of an internal developer platform lies in its design and operations, not in the code that implements it. VSHN brings the architectural judgment and 24/7 operational experience that AI tools do not provide.

Yes. Enterprises with 1000 or more employees must report the environmental impact of their cloud services under CSRD. When VSHN deploys your platform on Exoscale, you get access to CloudAssess, an automated Life Cycle Assessment tool that provides monthly environmental impact data for your sustainability reports. Exoscale data centers in Switzerland and Germany run on 100% renewable energy. For platforms deployed on other infrastructure, VSHN can help you document the environmental footprint of your stack.

A typical platform rollout runs in three phases: architecture and design takes two to four weeks, component setup and automation runs four to eight weeks depending on scope and integration complexity, and team onboarding and handoff takes two weeks. The timeline varies with the number of clusters, existing tooling to migrate, and your team's availability for workshops. VSHN provides a phased plan with milestones before any work starts, so you know exactly what is delivered at each stage and can adjust scope before committing to the full engagement.