Creating a Stronger Foundation for Learning
For over 25 years, Intuto has been helping organisations deliver online training and professional development. Based in New Zealand, its Learning Management System (LMS) supports associations and franchises across New Zealand, Australia, North America and the UK.
After losing a large portion of its hospitality customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Intuto pivoted toward associations – a move that opened up significant growth opportunities globally.
However, the technology supporting its platform began to hold it back.
“We have customers all over the world,” explains Gary Peebles, Intuto’s Chief Operating Officer. “But when people asked where their data was hosted, telling them it was in a small New Zealand data centre wasn’t always a great answer.”
Growth Exposes Limits of Legacy System
Originally, Intuto’s platform ran on a single server in a managed data centre. While the setup was stable, it couldn’t support scale or flexibility.
As the platform’s popularity grew overseas in markets such as the US, where associations are big business, conversations around data sovereignty grew more complex. Prospective customers, particularly in Australia and North America, had hesitations around data storage.
At the same time, “our deployment process was manual and prone to user error,” says Aaron Leggett, Intuto’s Lead Developer. “It limited our agility – we needed to be able to push changes in minutes rather than hours.”
Deployments involved taking the system offline, copying files across and bringing everything back online. For a development team of just three people, that process was time-consuming, stressful, and difficult to scale. And, instead of focusing entirely on improving the product, they were bogged down managing infrastructure and resolving issues.
“If something went wrong, we had to take someone off product development to deal with the server,” Gary explains. “That wasn’t great for a small team.”
Parallo Provided a Clear Path Forward
Intuto explored several options when considering a move to the cloud. Early conversations with other providers left the team uncertain, especially when proposals lacked clear scope or predictable outcomes. Parallo stood out for its combination of deep technical expertise and structured, transparent approach.
“We looked for a local partner with a strong reputation,” says Aaron. “Parallo’s experience with Azure and SaaS migrations made them the clear choice.”
Beyond technical expertise, Parallo understood Intuto’s commercial goals. While a big part of the solution was modernising the platform for an international audience, the team behind the screens was still small. It needed to grow with the business, but not create more work.
Parallo presented a clearly defined plan with fixed pricing and staged delivery, giving Intuto confidence in both the process and the outcome.
“You could tell straight away they really knew what they were talking about,” Gary says. “They understood things we didn’t – and that’s exactly what we needed.”
Working with a Modern Cloud Infrastructure
Parallo worked closely with Intuto to design and implement a cloud-native environment in Microsoft Azure that supports both current needs and future growth.
At the core of this shift was Infrastructure as Code. This means developers can create, update, and replicate environments consistently, rather than relying on manual configurations and one-off environments.
Parallo also introduced automated CI/CD pipelines, enabling code changes to move smoothly from development to production without manual intervention. Environment-specific configurations and secure key management practices now standardise how the platform operates.
Security was another key focus. The new architecture ensures that only controlled application pathways can access sensitive components such as the database, significantly reducing risk compared to the previous setup.
Deploying Changes “With the Click of a Button”
From Aaron’s perspective, speed has been one of the biggest improvements.
“The most tangible result is that we can now deploy changes with the click of a button,” he explains. “We’ve eliminated the errors associated with manual builds.”
This shift reduces operational overhead and frees the development team to focus on what matters most – building the product.
“Our developers are now working on new features instead of managing servers,” Gary says. “That’s where we want their time spent.”
Winning New International Business
Previously, conversations with prospective customers often involved detailed explanations about infrastructure, security and data storage. These discussions slowed the sales process and sometimes prevented deals from progressing.
“Being hosted in Azure has reduced a barrier in our sales process,” Gary explains. “Instead of long conversations about security and data storage, it’s a very simple answer.”
Microsoft Azure is a globally recognised and trusted platform that has helped Intuto grow its presence in Australia, the US and Canada. The new architecture has also accelerated progress toward SOC 2 compliance – a key requirement for many North American organisations.
“It’s given us a best-practice foundation to work from, and that’s made a big difference as we move toward compliance,” Aaron adds.
Designed for What Comes Next
Perhaps the most important outcome of the project is how well it positions Intuto for the future.
With Infrastructure as Code, expanding into new regions no longer requires a complex, time-intensive process. The team can quickly and reliably replicate its existing setup in another region.
“We can take what Parallo built and deploy it into another region like the US much faster,” Gary explains. “Before, that would have meant starting from scratch.”
This approach also allows Intuto to manage multiple regions more effectively. The team can deploy different instances to meet local data requirements, while maintaining a single codebase and updating everything simultaneously. Combined with the ability to scale resources up and down as needed, Intuto can now respond quickly to changing demand.
Building on What They’ve Learned
“Trying to do this ourselves would have taken months – and the result wouldn’t have been as good,” says Aaron about the ‘fast-forward’ effect of partnering with Parallo.
What began as a need to solve infrastructure challenges has turned into an ongoing partnership. Intuto now runs on a platform that supports faster development, simpler deployments, stronger security and global scalability. Parallo continues to support it by managing Azure and GitHub subscriptions and providing guidance as new requirements emerge.
“They act as a partner and guide,” says Aaron. “It’s given us the foundation and consistency of a much larger organisation.”
The most recent project has been centred around artificial intelligence (AI) – how these tools can help Intuto with data warehousing and business intelligence. Ongoing support like this will ensure Intuto can keep pace with the demands of a global market.
