Strategic Azure Projects
A selection of high-impact cloud transformation initiatives led as a Professional Services Delivery Architect.
TrustBank AI Gateway
Lead Azure Architect (GenAI Security)The Challenge: The CISO blocked all GenAI adoption due to "Shadow AI" risks (data leakage, lack of auditability). The business needed a secure way to consume GPT-4o for both public customers and internal employees without exposing private data.
Executive Outcomes
- Security Approved: Passed CISO review via 100% private networking (Private Links) and Zero Trust access.
- 30% Cost Reduction: Implemented APIM Semantic Caching to reduce backend token usage.
- Dual-Mode Access: Enabled safe "Public" and "Private" routing on a single gateway.
Architectural Strategy
- APIM Governance: Centralized all traffic via Azure API Management for rate limiting and logging.
- Smart Load Balancing: Distributed traffic across PTUs and Pay-As-You-Go models.
- GenAIOps: Automated "Red Teaming" evaluations in CI/CD pipelines using Prompt Flow.
Strategic Datacenter Modernization
Migration Technical Consultant (Strategic Core)The Challenge: Legacy on-premises infrastructure was approaching end-of-life, creating significant OpEx drag ($15k/mo waste) and preventing the adoption of modern, scalable AI/Data workloads.
Executive Outcomes
- 30% TCO Savings: Shifted CapEx to optimized OpEx via Azure Hybrid Benefit and Rightsizing.
- Zero Downtime: Executed cutover of mission-critical workloads with 100% business continuity.
- Azure MEG Framework: Migrated 238+ VMs and 60 apps 2 weeks ahead of the projected roadmap.
Architectural Strategy
- Discovery & Assessment: Led comprehensive portfolio analysis using Azure Migrate to identify dependency maps.
- Hybrid Connectivity: Designed ExpressRoute circuits for low-latency, secure replication traffic.
- Landing Zone Design: Built a Hub-Spoke topology to enforce network isolation prior to migration.
- Expert Frameworks: Implemented Microsoft-grade Wave Planning (T-Minus logic) and comprehensive Pre/Post cutover checklists.
Microsoft CAF: Enterprise-Scale Landing Zone
Principal Architect (Security & Governance)The Challenge: "ClickOps" provisioning created a 2-week lead time for new environments, stifling developer innovation and introducing severe security/compliance drift.
Strategic Outcomes (CAF)
- ALZ Democratization: Empowered 20+ app teams with self-service autonomy via guardrails and vending.
- Platform Separation: Decoupled Identity, Network, and Management from workload subscriptions.
- 98% Velocity Gain: Reduced environment provisioning time from 2 weeks to 4 hours via ALZ-Bicep.
Key Implementations
- Subscription Vending: Implemented the ALZ-Accelerator to vend fully-governed subscriptions with built-in networking.
- Policy-as-Code: Deployed 150+ Azure Policies to enforce data residency and network isolation by default.
- Zero Trust Fabric: Enforced strict RBAC, PIM, and Private Link isolation for all Platform services.
- Risk Mitigation: Utilized official review checklists to neutralize ALZ anti-patterns (ClickOps, Single-Sub drift).
SRE & Cost Optimization
Lead Architect (SRE & FinOps)The Challenge: Uncontrolled cloud spending with $2.3M annual Azure costs and no visibility into resource utilization, leading to 40%+ waste and budget overruns.
Strategic Outcomes (SRE & FinOps)
- 42% Cost Reduction: Achieved $960k annual savings through Hybrid Benefit, Reservations, and rightsizing.
- Real-Time Visibility: Implemented FinOps Toolkit workbooks for granular cost tracking and anomaly detection.
- Automated Governance: Deployed Azure Advisor recommendations with auto-remediation workflows.
Key Implementations
- Azure Hybrid Benefit: Enabled AHB for 150+ Windows/Linux VMs saving $380k/year.
- Reservations & Savings Plans: Committed to 3-year RIs for stable workloads (62% discount).
- Idle Resource Cleanup: Automated detection and shutdown of unused resources.
- FinOps Workbooks: Deployed Microsoft FinOps Toolkit for cost anomaly detection.
- Advisor Integration: Integrated Azure Advisor cost recommendations into CI/CD.
Secure Enterprise GenAI Knowledge Platform (RAG)
Lead Azure Cloud ArchitectThe Business Context: A regulated enterprise client required a Generative AI solution to democratize access to internal knowledge bases. The initiative was previously blocked by the CISO due to "Shadow AI" risks: public data leakage, lack of determinism (hallucinations), and inability to audit interactions. The goal was to operationalize a "Chat with Your Data" solution that adhered to Microsoft's Responsible AI Standard v2.
Architectural Strategy
Designed a Zero-Trust RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architecture tailored for strict compliance. The solution moves beyond simple "chat" to a managed AI Foundry workflow, prioritizing automated evaluation, private connectivity, and identity-based access over public convenience.
- Security Compliance: Achieved 100% network isolation, satisfying the CISO's requirement for "Private Networking with Azure OpenAI."
- Cost Optimization: Reduced backend model calls by ~30% via Smart Chunking and Semantic Caching (APIM).
- Hallucination Control: Significantly reduced hallucination rates using Semantic Ranking in Azure AI Search.
Key Architectural Decisions
- Private Networking: Hub-and-Spoke topology with Private Endpoints for Azure OpenAI, AI Search, and Storage. Zero public internet traffic.
- GenAI Engineering (LLMOps): Azure AI Prompt Flow for orchestration with automated evaluation (Groundedness, Relevance, Coherence).
- Identity-First Security: Microsoft Entra ID + Managed Identities for all service-to-service authentication. Zero connection strings.
- Safety Rails: Azure AI Content Safety filters to block jailbreak attempts and harmful content.