Projects

Microsoft CAF: Enterprise-Scale Landing Zone

Official Cloud Adoption Framework & ALZ Implementation

Architecture, Governance & Billing

The Governance Gap

01

Friction: Manual subscription vending was creating a "Wild West" environment. Developer velocity was hampered by 2-week provisioning SLAs.

  • Security Risk: Inconsistent RBAC and public endpoints exposed to the internet.
  • Compliance: No audit trail for SOC2 readiness.
  • Shadow IT: Uncontrolled spending due to lack of policy enforcement.

Solution: Subscription Democratization

2 Weeks
➔
4 Hours

Automated "Vending" vs Manual Ticket

Architecture: CAF Design Areas

02
  • Management Groups: Hierarchical organization (Root > Corp > Landing Zones) for global policy inheritance.
  • Policy-as-Code: 150+ Azure Policy definitions (Guardrails) deployed via GitHub Actions.
  • Zero Trust Fabric: Identity-first security with PIM, MFA, and Private Link isolation.
  • Subscription Vending: Automated deployment of fully-governed workload environments.

Critical ALZ Design Domains

1. Platform vs Application

Shared: Identity, Connectivity, Mgmt
Workloads: Corp, Online, Sandboxes

2. Deployment Methodology
ALZ-Bicep / Terraform Modules Azure Landing Zone Accelerator GitHub Actions / ADO Pipelines

Deployment: ALZ Accelerator

03

From Zero to Hero

Leveraged the ALZ-Accelerator and ALZ Library to bootstrap a production-ready environment in days rather than months.

Azure Review Checklists

Integrated Microsoft's Official Review Checklists into our CI/CD gate-keeping process:

  • Architecture Review Score: 96% compliance.
  • Automated validation of WAF, Networking, and RBAC.

Validation Strategy

Utilized Enterprise-Scale patterns to ensure consistency across environments:

Dry-Run: Policy impact analysis before deployment.
Drift Detection: Continuous auditing for security overrides.

Module: Modern Azure Billing Strategy

04

Buying Smartly (EA vs. MCA):

Transitioned from "Pay-As-You-Go" to a consolidated Enterprise Agreement (EA) structure, enabling volume discounts and unified billing scopes.

  • Commitment: Leveraged Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) for Windows/SQL to save ~40% on compute.
  • Reservations (RIs): Purchased 1-year and 3-year PIs for stable "always-on" workloads (Landing Zone hubs).
  • Tagging Taxonomy: Enforced strict "CostCenter" tags at the subscription level to enable granular chargeback.

Optimization Levers

Azure Hybrid Benefit -40%
3-Year Reservations -62%
Spot Instances (Dev) -80%

Risk Mitigation: ALZ Anti-Patterns

05

Architectural integrity is maintained by systematically avoiding common "Red Flags" identified in The Azure Playbook:

Anti-Pattern: The "ClickOps" Trap

Provisioning via UI leads to drift. Solution: Enforced IaC-Only via ALZ-Bicep/Terraform.

Anti-Pattern: Monolithic Subscriptions

Mixing App/Network/Identity. Solution: Strict Separation of Concerns (SoC).

Anti-Pattern: IT-Only Design Exercise

Ignoring App perspectives. Solution: CAF-aligned Design Domain Workshops.

Validation Score

0% Leakage

Architecture-Review checklist verified against 12 critical anti-patterns.

Management Group Hierarchy & Policy Inheritance

06

Hierarchical Structure

📁 Root Management Group
├─ 📁 Platform
│ ├─ Identity
│ ├─ Connectivity
│ └─ Management
└─ 📁 Landing Zones
├─ Corp (Internal Apps)
├─ Online (Public Apps)
└─ Sandboxes (Dev/Test)

Policies assigned at Root cascade down to all child subscriptions, ensuring consistent governance.

Policy Inheritance Flow

Root Level

Global policies: Allowed regions, Tagging standards, Audit logging

Platform Level

Network isolation, Private endpoints, Diagnostic settings

Landing Zone Level

Workload-specific: Encryption, Backup, Cost limits

200+ Subscriptions

15 Management Groups | 150+ Policies

Network Topology & Connectivity

07

Hub-and-Spoke Architecture

  • Hub VNet: Centralized connectivity (Azure Firewall, VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute)
  • Spoke VNets: Workload isolation with VNet peering to Hub
  • Transit Routing: All inter-spoke traffic flows through Hub Firewall
  • Private Link: Secure access to PaaS services (Storage, SQL, Key Vault)
Security Layers
🔹 Azure Firewall (Layer 7 filtering) 🔹 Network Security Groups (Layer 4 rules) 🔹 DDoS Protection Standard 🔹 Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Connectivity Options

ExpressRoute

Private, dedicated 10Gbps connection to on-premises datacenter

Site-to-Site VPN

Encrypted IPsec tunnel for branch office connectivity

Point-to-Site VPN

Remote user access with Azure AD authentication

99.99% Uptime

3 Regional Hubs | 50+ Spoke VNets

Identity & Access Management (Zero Trust)

08

Azure AD Integration

  • Single Sign-On (SSO): Seamless authentication across all Azure services
  • Conditional Access: Risk-based policies (MFA, device compliance, location)
  • Privileged Identity Management (PIM): Just-in-time admin access with approval workflow
  • Service Principals: Managed identities for app-to-app authentication
Zero Trust Principles
✓ Verify explicitly (MFA + Device compliance) ✓ Least privilege access (RBAC + PIM) ✓ Assume breach (Continuous monitoring)

RBAC & Governance

Custom Roles

25+ tailored roles (e.g., "Network Operator", "Cost Analyst")

PIM Workflow

Max 8-hour elevation | Manager approval required

Access Reviews

Quarterly certification of all privileged access

0 Standing Admin

500+ Users | 50+ Service Principals | 100% MFA

Monitoring & Observability Strategy

09

Centralized Logging

  • Log Analytics Workspace: Single pane of glass for all platform and workload logs
  • Diagnostic Settings: Auto-configured for all Azure resources via Policy
  • Retention: 30-day hot storage, 365-day archive to Storage Account
  • KQL Queries: Pre-built workbooks for security, performance, and cost analysis
Alert Coverage
🔔 Security incidents (Sentinel) 🔔 Performance degradation (App Insights) 🔔 Cost anomalies (Budget alerts) 🔔 Compliance drift (Policy violations)

Observability Stack

Azure Monitor

Metrics, logs, and distributed tracing for all resources

Application Insights

APM with dependency mapping and failure analysis

Microsoft Sentinel (SIEM)

AI-powered threat detection and automated response

5-Min Alert SLA

30-Day Retention | 99.9% Detection Rate

Security & Compliance Posture

10

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

  • Secure Score: 95% (industry benchmark: 68%)
  • Vulnerability Scanning: Continuous assessment of VMs, containers, and registries
  • Threat Protection: Real-time detection for compute, data, and identity layers
  • Regulatory Compliance: SOC2, ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, PCI-DSS
Data Protection
🔐 Encryption at rest (AES-256) 🔐 Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) 🔐 Customer-managed keys (Azure Key Vault) 🔐 Data residency enforcement (EU-only)

Compliance Frameworks

✓

SOC 2 Type II

✓

ISO 27001

✓

NIST 800-53

✓

PCI-DSS

Vulnerability Management

Weekly scans | 48-hour remediation SLA for critical CVEs

95% Secure Score

0 Critical Vulnerabilities | 100% Encrypted

Migration & Adoption Roadmap

11

4-Phase Adoption Journey

Phase 1: Foundation

Weeks 1-4

  • Management Groups
  • Azure Policies
  • Hub-Spoke Network
  • RBAC Framework
Phase 2: Platform

Weeks 5-8

  • Azure AD + PIM
  • Log Analytics
  • Defender for Cloud
  • Sentinel (SIEM)
Phase 3: Onboarding

Weeks 9-16

  • Subscription Vending
  • App Migration (200+)
  • Data Migration
  • User Training
Phase 4: Optimize

Ongoing

  • Cost Optimization
  • Performance Tuning
  • Security Hardening
  • Continuous Improvement

16-Week Deployment

98% Automation | 200+ Workloads Migrated | Zero Downtime

Architect's Reference Library

12

Methodology & Frameworks

Repositories & Tooling

Recap & Impact

13

"By codifying our governance and adopting a strategic billing model, we transformed IT from a cost center bottle-neck into an effortless enabler of innovation."

SOC2 Ready

Compliance by default

Self-Service

Vending Machine model

100% Visibility

Granular Cost Analysis

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