WHAT DOES A CLOUD ARCHITECT DO?
Published: July 23, 2024 - The Cloud Architect designs and implements efficient, secure, and scalable cloud solutions on Azure, embracing DevOps methodologies for continuous delivery and self-healing systems. The architect also partners with Cyber and Security teams to ensure security controls are embedded into the architecture and designs while driving recommendations for business prioritization and product improvements. This role involves leading project deliverables across multiple workstreams, creating proof-of-concepts, and enforcing Agile and Scrum development methodologies.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Cloud Architect
1. Cloud Architect Responsibilities
- Constant Learner: Stay up on the latest in cloud computing capabilities and best practices
- Thought Leader: Be a thought leader in the Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 community
- Customer Engagement: Deliver high value and quality for customer engagements in the form of consulting engagements, training delivery, or technical content development (presentations, videos, labs, hackathons, etc.)
- Technical Pre-Sales Support: Provide technical pre-sales support for Opsgility’s sales team to understand clients' needs and requirements and scope opportunities
- Strategy Development: Drive strategy for the Microsoft Azure technology pillar within Opsgility and online learning platform SkillMeUp.com by providing guidance on technology trends and staying ahead of the curve
- Team Leadership: Lead external trainers and authors to drive high-quality standards matching expectations of the largest organizations on the planet
- Product and Technology Design: Create product and technology designs to help determine future state architectural vision and modernization efforts to meet business goals and growth projections
- Architectural Guidance: Provide architectural guidance to teams to build scalable and maintainable solutions and adhere to a technology roadmap
- Product Development: Participate in product development activities such as architecture, design, prototyping, implementation, and review
- Cloud-Native Transformation: Lead a transformation of existing products through cloud-native transformation
- Design Review: Aid product teams in design reviews to ensure the architecture is scalable and consistent with the overall architectural vision
2. Cloud Architect Accountabilities
- Cloud Technologies: Architect and design applications that run on Azure cloud by providing technical expertise and guidance in cloud technologies.
- Azure Services: Work with business units to champion the Azure services available and how they can enable the business to run more efficiently in Azure.
- Cloud Migration: Shepherd migrations from on-premise deployments to a public cloud environment.
- Azure Approaches: Work with a team of Architects and Engineers to develop approaches for Azure cloud services.
- Information Management: Corral and coordinate significant volumes of information and provide insights into both qualitative and quantitative data.
- Output Contribution: Provide outputs that can contribute to the management of the live services.
- Practical Demonstration: Develop own ideas, or the ideas of others, making all the necessary observations and tests and carrying them through to a full practical demonstration, wherever viable and feasible.
- Business Performance: Develop models and plans for the implementation of the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance.
- Cloud Applications: Design and develop the migration plan for applications in the cloud.
- Product Expansion: Maintain well-architected AWS design and expand it to future product lines.
- System Expansion: Expand the use of configuration management.
3. Cloud Architect Overview
- Software Development: Design and development of scalable software solutions for use in scientific environments, focusing on data management and cluster computing for image analysis in automated microscopy
- Product Pipeline Definition: Definition of the product pipeline, in close coordination with product management and other RandD functions
- Software Architecture: Define the software architecture in all areas of a web application that’s deployable both on-prem and in the cloud, in collaboration with other software teams
- Technical Leadership: Technical leadership of the development team in Hamburg
- Technology Selection: Technology selection and introduction of new technologies
- Competence Development: Further development of technical competence, development processes, and tools
- Team Integration: Integration of teams from Hamburg and other PerkinElmer locations to achieve technical project goals
- Development Participation: Active participation in development work
- Work Planning: Work planning, writing unit tests, and performing code reviews
- Framework Maintenance: Build and maintain the framework for automating alert response
- Team Development: Help develop the team direction and tools for smooth and automatic deployment and monitoring
4. Cloud Architect Tasks
- Business Insights: Apply technical knowledge and business insights to create a future Cloud roadmap.
- Azure Architectural Standards: Set Azure architectural standards and best practices for cloud environments.
- Azure Solution Deployment: Plan, configure, deploy, and optimize Microsoft Azure-based solutions.
- Data and Engineering Collaboration: Work closely with Data and Engineering Teams to design best-in-class Azure implementations.
- Security Collaboration: Work closely with the Security Team to ensure the environment is secure and adheres to HIPAA and SOC2 commitments.
- Automation Implementation: Design and implement automation for Azure infrastructure (Infrastructure as Code).
- Documentation Maintenance: Establish and maintain documentation for the Azure environment.
- Deployment Process Improvement: Improve the deployment process and work toward CI/CD capabilities and tools.
- Application and Server Migration: Architect application and server migrations using automation tools like Azure DevOps, ARM, and Terraform.
- Resource Management: Manage a combination of on-shore and off-shore resources.
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with application, network, and security teams to ensure requirements are reflected appropriately in the Azure design.
5. Cloud Architect Roles
- Leadership Development: Guide and lead the development teams on implementation and improving the platform and solutions.
- Business Analysis: Drive recommendations for business prioritization, roadmaps, and product improvements.
- Cloud Solutions Design: Design efficient, secure, adaptable, scalable, and reliable cloud solutions that include Azure infrastructure and platform services (data, networking, application).
- DevOps Continuous Delivery: Embrace the DevOps way of working for continuous delivery and self-healing systems.
- Security Collaboration: Partner with Cyber and Security to ensure security controls are embedded into the architecture/designs.
- Innovation Prototyping: Create proof-of-concepts to demonstrate the feasibility of new ideas and innovations.
- Project Management: Lead project deliverables across multiple work-streams and guide projects with high quality and engineering discipline.
- Agile, Scrum: Practice and enforce Agile and Scrum development methodologies.
- Cloud Deployment Design: Be involved with enterprise-level Azure-centric projects where you will design and deploy cloud environments and resources.
- Application Deployment Testing: Be part of the deployment, testing, and implementation of applications and services.