Cloud Migration & DevOps for Canadian SaaS, Fintech, and Regulated Teams
MicroPyramid is a senior-led team that migrates Canadian startups and SMBs to AWS and runs the DevOps that keeps them there. We handle the full move (assessment, low-downtime cutover, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD).
Why Canadian Teams Migrate With Us
Four reasons Canadian founders and engineering leads choose MicroPyramid for cloud migration and DevOps over a local agency or a generic offshore team
Eastern-Time Standups, End-of-Day Handoffs
The overlap window in your Eastern-time morning is where migration decisions get made. We attend standups live, make same-day cutover calls, and review pipelines before your afternoon. Completed work is handed off at your end of day, so your Canadian team wakes up to progress, not a backlog of questions.
PIPEDA, Law 25, OSFI & Data Residency
We understand PIPEDA and the oversight role of the OPC, Quebec's Law 25 (with its duty to run a privacy impact assessment before personal information leaves the province), and OSFI B-10 and B-13 expectations for financial-services teams. Migration architecture, storage, and third-party choices are made with compliance in mind, and AWS ca-central-1 (Montréal), with ca-west-1 (Calgary) where a second in-country region helps, keeps Canadian data in-country during and after the move.
CAD Billing & AWS Spend Control
Our invoices are in Canadian dollars, collected via Stripe: no currency-conversion friction or international wire fees, and GST/HST-compliant invoicing available on request. We also help you read and control your AWS bill in CAD terms, so cloud cost stays predictable rather than creeping up quietly.
Senior Ownership, Zero-Drama Cutovers
Founders and senior engineers own every migration directly. You will not be handed to a junior delivery layer mid-cutover. The person who scopes your assessment is the person planning your zero or low-downtime move to AWS.
Cloud & DevOps Services for Canadian Teams
Six services covering the full journey, from AWS migration and data moves to Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and ongoing cost control
Cloud Migration to AWS
Move workloads off ageing on-premise servers or a costly current provider onto AWS: lift-and-shift, re-platform, or re-architect, scoped to your risk appetite. Canadian data stays in ca-central-1 (Montréal) where residency matters.
- Lift-and-shift or re-platform
- AWS ca-central-1 (Montréal) residency
- Dependency and TCO mapping
Database & Data Migration
Migrate PostgreSQL, MySQL, and managed databases with low-downtime cutovers and full validation. We use change-data-capture replication so Canadian production data moves without data loss or extended outages.
- CDC replication for low downtime
- RDS and Aurora managed migration
- Validation and rollback plans
Containerization & Re-architecture
Repackage applications into Docker containers and run them on ECS or EKS, or move targeted workloads to serverless. Cloud-native architecture that auto-scales for Canadian SaaS and fintech traffic patterns.
- Docker and ECS/EKS
- Serverless where it fits
- Auto-scaling and high availability
CI/CD Pipelines
Replace manual deploys with automated GitHub Actions pipelines: build, test, and ship on every merge. Your Canadian team gets repeatable releases, faster cycles, and far fewer late-night deployment incidents.
- GitHub Actions pipelines
- Automated testing and rollbacks
- Staging and production parity
Infrastructure as Code
Define your whole cloud estate in Terraform so it is versioned, reviewable, and reproducible. No more snowflake servers nobody dares touch: every change goes through code review, the way your Canadian team already works.
- Terraform-managed infrastructure
- Reproducible environments
- Reviewable, audited changes
Cost Optimization & Managed Cloud
Get your AWS spend under control in CAD terms: right-sizing, reserved capacity, and ongoing monitoring. We keep the lights on after go-live with senior support overlapping Eastern-time hours, not a faceless queue.
- AWS spend control in CAD terms
- Right-sizing and reserved capacity
- Ongoing monitoring and support
Canadian Teams We Work Best With
If any of these situations match where your Canadian team is right now, a cloud conversation is worth having
Canadian Teams Still on On-Premise
You are paying for servers, cooling, and hardware refresh cycles. You want to move to AWS to cut capital cost and stop firefighting infrastructure, without a risky big-bang cutover.
Canadian SaaS Outgrowing Its Hosting
Your fintech, healthtech, or SaaS product is hitting scaling limits or over-provisioned to handle spikes. You need cloud-native architecture that auto-scales without burning budget.
Regulated Industries Needing Data Residency
You handle personal or financial data and need Canadian data residency, audit trails, and PIPEDA- and Law 25-aware architecture. AWS ca-central-1 (Montréal) keeps your data in-country where it must stay.
Teams With Manual, Fragile Deploys
Releases are manual, scary, and infrequent. You want CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code so deploys become routine, not an event the whole team dreads.
Companies With Runaway AWS Bills
Your cloud spend has crept up and nobody is quite sure why. You need a senior review, right-sizing, and ongoing cost discipline measured in CAD, not vague promises.
Teams With Limited DevOps Bandwidth
Your engineers are busy shipping product, not managing infrastructure. You need a senior external partner to own migration and DevOps with Eastern-time morning standups and end-of-day handoffs.
AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud? How to Choose for a Canadian Workload
The question most Canadian buyers actually ask, and the one most providers dodge. Here is the straight version, mapped to data residency, compliance, and the stack you already run.
Amazon Web Services
Recommended for most CA teams
AWS runs two Canadian regions, ca-central-1 (Montréal) and ca-west-1 (Calgary), with the widest catalogue of managed services and the largest local hiring pool. It is the safe default for most Canadian startups and regulated teams that want data kept in-country.
Choose it when
You want the widest Canadian data-residency coverage, the deepest managed-service catalogue, and the biggest local talent market.
Microsoft Azure
Azure runs Canada Central (Toronto) and Canada East (Québec City) and is common across Canadian public sector and federal workloads. It is the natural fit if you already live in Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and the Microsoft enterprise stack.
Choose it when
You are a Microsoft-centric or public-sector-adjacent team, or you are standardising on the Microsoft 365 and Entra ID estate.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud runs Montréal and Toronto regions and is strongest for data-analytics and Kubernetes-first workloads: BigQuery, Dataflow, and GKE. A good fit when analytics or ML is the centre of gravity, not an afterthought.
Choose it when
Your workload is data-analytics-heavy or Kubernetes-first, or you are building around BigQuery and ML.
Our take: We are deepest on AWS and run Canadian production on ca-central-1 (Montréal), but we stay cloud-agnostic in the assessment. We recommend the platform that fits your stack, compliance obligations, and team, not the one we would prefer to sell. Most Canadian teams land on AWS for its residency breadth and talent pool; Microsoft-stack and public-sector-adjacent teams often land on Azure. Either way, you get that recommendation in writing, with the trade-offs spelled out, before any migration begins.
Best Fit For
- Canadian fintech, healthtech, govtech, and SaaS teams moving to AWS with data residency in mind
- startups and SMBs that need a low-downtime migration owned end-to-end by senior engineers
- teams that want CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and repeatable deploys instead of manual releases
- companies that need their AWS spend brought under control and kept there in CAD terms
Not the Right Fit When
- one-off server tweaks with no migration, automation, or architecture work behind them
- engagements looking only for hands to run an existing pipeline without ownership
- multi-cloud strategies where AWS is explicitly off the table from the start
- teams wanting a cloud badge rather than measurable cost, reliability, or residency outcomes
If you also need new product features built on top of the migrated stack, see Canadian Product Engineering.
Public proof of our cloud delivery: Refactored.ai shows containerized, cloud-hosted delivery at scale, and Bough Digital is an agency platform we built and ran cloud infrastructure for.
How a Canadian Cloud Migration Runs
A structured, senior-led process that minimizes downtime and risk: assessment and architecture before anything moves to AWS
Discovery & Assessment
We audit your current infrastructure, map dependencies, and calculate total cost of ownership and realistic AWS savings before anything moves.
Architecture & Residency Design
We design the target AWS architecture with high availability, disaster recovery, and Canadian data residency in ca-central-1 (Montréal) baked in from the start.
Migrate With IaC & Low Downtime
We provision with Terraform, migrate data with CDC replication, wire up CI/CD, and run a controlled cutover that keeps downtime to a minimum.
Optimize & Support
After go-live we monitor, right-size for cost, tune performance, and support your Canadian team, with senior ownership, not a ticket queue.
The Stack Behind Canadian Cloud Delivery
AWS-native compute and data, with Terraform and GitHub Actions for repeatable delivery, deployed to ca-central-1 (Montréal) for Canadian data residency, or ca-west-1 (Calgary) where it fits
Compute & Containers
Data & Storage
IaC & CI/CD
How to Get Started as a Canadian Team
We recommend starting with a Cloud Assessment: a senior audit, migration roadmap, and AWS cost projection before any move. All engagements billed in CAD via Stripe.
Cloud Assessment
A senior audit of your current infrastructure with a migration roadmap, AWS cost projection in CAD, and a clear residency plan, before you commit to a full move.
- Infrastructure and dependency audit
- Migration strategy and roadmap
- AWS cost projection in CAD
- Canadian data residency plan
Full Migration
End-to-end migration to AWS with Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, low-downtime cutover, and a defined post-go-live support window for your Canadian team.
- End-to-end AWS migration
- IaC and CI/CD set up
- Low-downtime cutover and post-go-live support
Managed Cloud & DevOps
Ongoing management of your AWS estate (monitoring, cost optimization, security, and pipeline maintenance) with live standups aligned to Eastern-time hours.
- Monitoring and incident response
- Cost optimization in CAD terms
- Retainer or time-and-material
Selected Cloud and DevOps Work
Products we have hosted, migrated, and run on the cloud for startups, SMBs, and international teams, including Refactored.ai and Bough Digital.
Bough Digital
Digital agency platform: campaign management, client dashboards, and analytics, with cloud infrastructure built and run for a demanding international agency client.
See portfolio
Refactored
Interactive Python learning platform with AI-assisted exercises and assessments, cloud-hosted, containerized, and scaled for concurrent learners.
Read case study
PRO Music Tutor
Premium online music learning platform connecting students with world-class instructors, full-stack delivery on managed cloud infrastructure.
See portfolio
CREDITABLE
Employee financial wellness platform for savings, loans, and workplace financial services, fintech-adjacent product on secure, scalable cloud.
See more workCanadian Cloud Migration FAQs
Straight answers to what Canadian founders and CTOs ask us most about moving to the cloud.
What is cloud migration, and what does it involve?
Cloud migration is the process of moving applications, databases, and infrastructure off on-premise servers or a costly current provider onto a cloud platform like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. A typical migration involves assessing your current stack, designing the target architecture, migrating data with a low-downtime cutover, defining the environment as Infrastructure as Code so it is reproducible, and wiring up CI/CD so future deploys are automatic. Done well, it cuts capital cost, improves reliability, and makes scaling on demand routine.
Where does our data live if we migrate, and does it stay in Canada?
Yes, for Canadian workloads we deploy to AWS ca-central-1 (Montréal), with ca-west-1 (Calgary) available where a second in-country region helps. Your data, backups, and processing stay on Canadian soil, which keeps you aligned with PIPEDA and supports Quebec Law 25, which requires a privacy impact assessment before personal information is transferred outside the province. One honest caveat: AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are US-owned, so even Canadian-hosted data can in principle be reached under the US CLOUD Act. Where that risk is unacceptable for your most sensitive data, we design hybrid or on-premise-adjacent setups that keep it inside your own environment.
AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud: which should a Canadian team choose?
AWS is the safe default for most Canadian startups and regulated teams: two local regions (Montréal and Calgary), the widest catalogue of managed services, and the largest local hiring pool. Azure fits Microsoft-centric and public-sector-adjacent teams and runs Canada Central (Toronto) and Canada East (Québec City). Google Cloud is strongest for data-analytics and Kubernetes-first workloads and runs Montréal and Toronto regions. We are deepest on AWS but stay cloud-agnostic in the assessment and recommend the platform that fits your stack and compliance needs, not the one we prefer to sell.
Can you migrate with zero or low downtime?
For most workloads, yes. We use change-data-capture (CDC) replication to keep your old and new databases in sync, rehearse the cutover end to end, and keep a tested rollback plan, so the switch happens in a short, controlled window, often with no user-facing downtime at all. High-risk or regulated systems get a staged, phased cutover rather than a big-bang move.
How do you handle OSFI, PIPEDA, and Quebec Law 25 compliance during a migration?
We design migrations with Canadian compliance in mind from day one: data residency in ca-central-1 (Montréal), encryption in transit and at rest, least-privilege IAM, and audit trails. For federally regulated financial-services teams we build to OSFI B-10 (third-party risk) and B-13 (technology and cyber risk) expectations; for government-adjacent work we architect with the federal Protected B and CCCS guidance in view; and across the board we respect PIPEDA, the OPC accountability principle, Quebec Law 25, and the BC and Alberta PIPA regimes. We sign NDAs before work begins and you retain full ownership of all code, infrastructure, and data.
You are offshore. How does that work for a Canadian cloud migration?
There is a dependable overlap in your Eastern-time morning for standups, cutover decisions, and pipeline reviews, and because our team works while Canada sleeps, migration prep often progresses overnight, so you wake up to completed work rather than a status update you have to chase. You work directly with senior engineers on Slack, not an account manager and a delivery pyramid. We bill in Canadian dollars via Stripe, with GST/HST-compliant invoicing available on request, and you own every line of Terraform, every pipeline, and all of your data from day one.
What drives the cost of a cloud migration?
The main cost drivers are how many applications you move, how much you re-architect versus lift-and-shift, your data volume, and your compliance and uptime requirements. Rather than quote blind, we start with a fixed-scope cloud assessment that gives you a concrete estimate in CAD and a migration roadmap before any migration begins. Most teams also see their ongoing cloud bill fall by around 30% after migration, from right-sizing over-provisioned servers, reserved capacity, and shutting down idle resources.
Do we own our infrastructure, and do you stay on after go-live?
You own everything: all Terraform and Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, application code, and data are yours, and we hand over full documentation. Staying on is your choice: every migration includes a post-go-live support window, and if you want ongoing help, our Managed Cloud engagement covers monitoring, incident response, cost optimization in CAD terms, and security on a continuing basis, with senior ownership, not a ticket queue.
Move Your Canadian Workloads to the Cloud, Without the Chaos
If you need a senior-led team with Eastern-time overlap, CAD billing, and data residency in ca-central-1 (Montréal), we are ready to talk. We start with a clear assessment and a migration plan built around low downtime, not a leap of faith.