The Archive

Writing

8 posts on cloud, networking, virtualisation and the infrastructure I build.

2026.05.28 From vCenter to Azure Arc: Bridging Two Worlds On-prem estates aren't going anywhere — but they don't have to feel like a different planet. Here's how I extend Azure's control plane down to the hypervisor with Arc, and the gotchas nobody warns you about. HybridAzure 9 min

2026.05.09 Landing Zones That Don't Make You Cry Most landing zone failures aren't technical — they're decisions deferred. A pragmatic take on scaffolding subscriptions, policy and identity before the first workload lands. AzureGovernance 8 min

2026.04.21 Azure VMware Solution: When Lift-and-Shift Actually Makes Sense Re-platforming everything into native cloud sounds great on a slide and terrible in a delivery plan. Sometimes the pragmatic move is to bring VMware with you — and AVS is how. AVSVMware 8 min

2026.04.02 Bicep vs Terraform: Choosing Your Weapon on Azure I've shipped both into production. This is the honest comparison I wish I'd had — state, modules, drift, and the team factors that matter more than syntax. IaCAzure 11 min

2026.03.15 The Hybrid Identity Puzzle: Entra ID Meets On-Prem AD Sync, federation, pass-through, seamless SSO — the identity layer is where hybrid projects quietly succeed or fall apart. A field map of the options. HybridAzure 10 min

2026.02.26 Azure Policy at Scale Without Losing Your Mind Initiatives, exemptions, remediation tasks — governance that scales is a design problem, not a compliance checkbox. How I structure policy across a tenant. AzureGovernance 7 min

2026.02.04 FortiGate Meets Azure: Securing the Hub-and-Spoke Edge Azure-native firewalls are great until a client has standardised on Fortinet everywhere else. Here's how I drop a FortiGate into a hub-and-spoke without fighting the platform. NetworkingSecurity 9 min

2026.01.12 What I Run in My Homelab (and Why It Makes Me Better at Work) The fastest way I've found to actually understand a technology is to run it badly, at home, where the only thing I can break is my own weekend. HomelabVMware 6 min