Case Study: Deakin University cuts toolchain sprawl with GitLab

Deakin University cuts toolchain sprawl with GitLab

Deakin University, a higher education institution in Melbourne, struggled with toolchain sprawl across more than a dozen software delivery teams. Before adopting GitLab Ultimate, the university relied on duplicated CI/CD, source control, package management, and security tools, leading to fragmented processes, manual work, inconsistent code review, and rising costs.

GitLab implemented an end-to-end DevSecOps platform that consolidated source control, CI/CD, security scanning, and collaboration, while integrating with existing tools like Jira, HashiCorp Vault, and Red Hat OpenShift. The result was faster delivery, improved developer experience, and better code quality: Deakin says it cut at least 60% of manual tasks, improved MTTR for support tickets, and gave developers immediate feedback through automated pipelines.

Deakin University

Aaron Whitehand

Director of Digital Enablement