Strategic Azure Projects

A selection of high-impact cloud transformation initiatives led as a Professional Services Delivery Architect.

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.
Azure Migrate ExpressRoute Hub-Spoke Topology Cost Management
Read Case Study View Strategy Deck

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).
Terraform / ALZ-Bicep Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) Azure Policy GitHub Actions

Architect's Reference Library

Evidence: View Architecture Deck

Cloud Cost & Reliability Optimization

Lead Architect (FinOps & Resiliency)

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 (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.
Azure Cost Management FinOps Toolkit Azure Advisor Power BI Azure Policy

FinOps Reference Library

Evidence: View Architecture Deck

Secure Enterprise GenAI Knowledge Platform (RAG)

Lead Azure Cloud Architect

The 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.
Azure AI Foundry Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o) Azure AI Search Azure Private Link Terraform & Bicep

GenAI & RAG Reference Library

View Architecture Deck