01
The challenge
The platform required a stable and secure hosting environment for an enterprise ASP.NET and Umbraco CMS application while supporting frequent content and application changes. The challenge went beyond hosting: infrastructure, application services, database connectivity, security, deployment pipelines and production operations all had to work together reliably, for a public-facing platform that applicants and students depend on.
02
Solution architecture
Request path in teal; dashed lines are private connectivity, deployment and telemetry. Scroll sideways on small screens.
Layers top to bottom. Controls apply at every layer.
03
Approach
- 01Azure architecture: managed and optimised the infrastructure supporting the public digital platform and its application services.
- 02.NET and Umbraco: owned the infrastructure and deployment requirements for the ASP.NET and Umbraco CMS stack.
- 03Application Services: configured and operated Azure App Services and supporting resources for reliable hosting and deployment, with slots for zero-downtime swaps.
- 04Database: managed the infrastructure and connectivity for SQL Server and Azure SQL workloads, including backups and restore.
- 05CI/CD: implemented and maintained automated deployment pipelines in Azure DevOps across environments.
- 06Security: Azure networking, access control, TLS, application security and production hardening.
- 07Operations: production deployments, troubleshooting, infrastructure changes, performance issues and ongoing support.
04
How the delivery ran
- Hosting baseline agreed first: App Service plans, environments, TLS and access restrictions on the Umbraco back office.
- Pipelines per application with UAT as the approval gate; release steps that had been manual moved into Azure DevOps.
- Database connectivity and secrets moved to private endpoints, Key Vault and managed identities.
- Infrastructure brought under Terraform where it was practical, starting with networking, SQL and storage.
- Monitoring, availability tests and alert rules added, with runbooks for the alerts that page.
05
What was delivered
- Azure App Service infrastructure
- .NET and Umbraco application hosting
- SQL database infrastructure and connectivity
- Application deployment pipelines
- Development, UAT and production environments
- Azure networking and security configuration
- TLS and secure application access
- Application and infrastructure monitoring
- Production deployment management and troubleshooting
- Performance optimisation and ongoing cloud and DevOps operations
06
Results
| Dimension | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Platform | Reliable Azure foundation for the university's digital platform |
| Application | Stable hosting and deployment for .NET and Umbraco workloads |
| Delivery | More repeatable application release process |
| Security | Improved control over application and cloud access |
| Operations | Better visibility and structured production support |
| Scalability | Azure-based platform capable of supporting public-facing digital services |
| Ownership | End-to-end cloud, infrastructure and application delivery responsibility |
Client confidentiality: The institution is described by sector rather than name. Certain implementation details have been generalised while accurately representing the nature of the engagement.
Facing a similar decision? A 30-minute architecture review is the fastest way to find out whether the same approach fits.
Book an architecture reviewMore case studies
Other engagements
Government · Tourism · Azure
A secure Azure platform for a national tourism digital ecosystem, delivered as code.
A high-traffic tourism ecosystem built on Sitecore, .NET and Optimizely needed standardised, observable and resilient infrastructure across development, UAT and production. I owned cloud architecture, security, networking, CI/CD and production application delivery as Cloud Solution Architect and DevOps Engineer.
Food & Wellness · E-commerce · Azure
The Azure platform behind a high-volume digital meal-plan experience, run as code.
PractiCal sells personalised meal plans across the UAE through a Next.js storefront, Laravel/PHP backend services and Azure serverless workloads. I owned the cloud and application platform end to end: infrastructure, edge security, CI/CD and production operations across development, staging and production.
B2B SaaS · AWS
Kubernetes platform that cut cloud spend by 60% and deploy time from 45 minutes to 5.
A growing SaaS platform was running on hand-built AWS infrastructure with manual deployments and costs rising 40% month on month. I replaced it with a production-grade EKS platform, GitOps delivery and infrastructure as code, migrated with zero downtime.
FinTech · AWS
Zero-trust AWS controls that took a FinTech to SOC 2 Type II in 8 weeks with no audit findings.
Enterprise deals depended on SOC 2 Type II, and the existing estate had shared secrets in code, permissive IAM and no audit trail. I designed and implemented the identity, network, secrets and audit controls, and the external audit closed with zero findings.
B2B Software · Kubernetes
Observability and SLOs that cut detection time from 90 minutes to 5 and freed a fifth of engineering time.
A six-person team ran production with no visibility: incidents took hours to detect and 40% of engineering time went to firefighting. I built the observability stack, defined SLOs and burn-rate alerting, and wrote the runbooks. Detection fell to 5 minutes and the team got 20% of its time back.