Iceland Post – Umbraco 8 to 13 Upgrade and AWS Cloud Migration
A no-longer-supported CMS that had become a security risk
The existing Iceland Post platform was running on Umbraco 8, which had already reached End-of-Life status when the project started — no security patches were being released for it. Mitigating the security risk, replacing the legacy technology stack, and moving to a cloud-based operating model all had to be solved within a single, well-orchestrated programme.
Security risk
End-of-Life CMS version with no active security patches
Legacy technology
.NET Framework codebase incompatible with modern Umbraco versions
On-premise limitations
Limited scalability and operational flexibility on dedicated infrastructure
Minimal content freeze
The go-live had to happen with the shortest possible interruption to editorial workflows
More than an upgrade – a modern, scalable, automatically deployable platform
Iceland Post needed a future-proof, stable digital platform serving both end users and content editors — combined with cloud advantages and automated deployment workflows.
Security and support
Actively maintained CMS
An actively maintained CMS version with continuous security patches.
Scalable delivery
Dynamic capacity
Frontend capacity that scales dynamically with traffic peaks.
Cloud-native operations
AWS-based operations
A modern operating model built on AWS infrastructure.
Zero Downtime go-live
Zero Downtime
A Blue-green deployment that never interrupts service.
Automated deployment
Pipeline-driven go-live
A pipeline- and script-driven go-live with no manual steps.
Headless-ready architecture
Headless ready
Foundations laid for fully decoupling the frontend and backend in the future.
Scaled Umbraco architecture on AWS, with a semi-headless frontend
The platform is built on an Umbraco 13 architecture designed to evolve into a fully headless setup in the future. Content management, public delivery and media storage are split into independent, dedicated layers — providing both stability and scalability.
Umbraco 13 Backoffice
A dedicated backoffice server for editors, where all content is managed and published from a single point across the entire platform.
Scaled frontend servers
Horizontally scaling Umbraco 13 frontend servers that expand dynamically with traffic — ensuring high availability and fast response times.
React + Semi-Headless Umbraco
A React application built into Umbraco 13 using a custom semi-headless integration. The architecture is prepared for a future evolution into a fully headless setup, with scalable, independent frontend servers running separately from the backend.
Amazon S3
Images, videos and documents are stored in S3 buckets — decoupled from the application layer for scalability and cost efficiency.
The technology foundation
Every component is optimized for scalability and automation, with cloud-native operations.
Umbraco 13 CMS
Backoffice plus horizontally scaling frontend servers on modern ASP.NET Core foundations.
React frontend
Semi-headless integration with Umbraco 13, architected for a future fully headless evolution.
AWS Cloud
Cloud hosting for the entire application stack — backoffice and frontend alike.
Amazon S3
Scalable object storage for media assets (images, videos, documents).
Datadog
Unified monitoring and centralized logging — real-time visibility into system health and performance.
GitLab CI/CD
Version control, automated CI/CD pipelines and Blue-green deployment orchestration.
From kick-off to DNS switch, everything is driven by pipelines and scripts
One of the project's standout outcomes is the fully automated, pipeline- and script-driven go-live. Because Iceland Post's content structure largely matched the structures supported by Umbraco 13 out of the box, we didn't need to run a uSync Migration — which would have introduced manual steps that are difficult to automate.
Take a snapshot of the live Umbraco 8 production database
Spin up an Umbraco 10 environment and connect it to the database copy
Start Umbraco 10 — the built-in DB upgrade runs; verify success
Shut down Umbraco 10, then create the Umbraco 13 backoffice and frontend servers and connect them to the database
Migrate media assets from the live database to an S3 bucket
Start the Umbraco 13 backoffice — the second built-in DB upgrade runs; verify success
Start the Umbraco 13 frontend and run a load test
After confirming the system is healthy, redirect production traffic at the DNS level
Two strong technical teams, one shared outcome
At Iceland Post, we worked alongside engineers experienced in operating and developing large-scale systems. ALLWIN contributed its broad Umbraco CMS expertise, its track record of delivering Umbraco 8 → 13 upgrades, and its experience running, scaling and migrating Umbraco workloads from on-premise environments into the cloud. The combination of these complementary strengths is what delivered the project's success.
A secure, scalable, future-proof platform in the cloud
The new system fundamentally changed how Iceland Post operates its digital platform.
A secure, supported CMS
Umbraco 13 with active maintenance and continuous security patches
Zero Downtime go-live
Blue-green deployment with no interruption to service
Scalable delivery
Horizontally scaling frontend capacity, aligned to traffic
Modern cloud infrastructure
AWS-based hosting with high availability
Full visibility
Datadog monitoring and centralized logging — real-time insight into system health
Automated deployment
A reproducible, GitLab CI/CD–driven go-live with no manual steps
