In the landscape of cloud computing, networking remains the foundational layer upon which all other services depend. Azure Virtual Network (VNet) serves as the cornerstone of network architecture in Microsoft Azure, providing the isolation, segmentation, and connectivity that enterprise applications require. Having designed and implemented VNet architectures across numerous enterprise deployments, I’ve come to appreciate… Continue reading
Month: April 2025
Securing Cloud Applications with Google Cloud Armor: Enterprise WAF and DDoS Protection
Introduction: Google Cloud Armor provides enterprise-grade DDoS protection and web application firewall (WAF) capabilities that integrate seamlessly with Cloud Load Balancing. This comprehensive guide explores Cloud Armor’s security capabilities, from preconfigured WAF rules and custom security policies to adaptive protection and bot management. After implementing security architectures for enterprises handling millions of requests daily, I’ve… Continue reading
Cloud Spanner Deep Dive: Building Globally Distributed Databases That Never Go Down
Introduction: Cloud Spanner represents a breakthrough in database technology—the world’s first horizontally scalable, strongly consistent relational database that spans continents while maintaining ACID transactions. This comprehensive guide explores Spanner’s enterprise capabilities, from its TrueTime-based consistency model to multi-region configurations and automatic sharding. After architecting globally distributed systems across multiple database technologies, I’ve found Spanner uniquely… Continue reading
Azure Key Vault: A Solutions Architect’s Guide to Enterprise Secrets Management
In the world of cloud-native applications, secrets management has evolved from a necessary evil to a critical architectural concern. Azure Key Vault stands as Microsoft’s answer to centralized secrets, keys, and certificate management, providing a secure foundation for enterprise applications. Having implemented Key Vault across dozens of production environments, I’ve come to appreciate its role… Continue reading
RESTful AI API Design: Best Practices for LLM APIs
Designing RESTful APIs for LLMs requires careful consideration. After building 30+ LLM APIs, I’ve learned what works. Here’s the complete guide to RESTful AI API design. Figure 1: RESTful AI API Architecture Why LLM APIs Are Different LLM APIs have unique requirements: Async operations: LLM inference can take seconds or minutes Streaming responses: Need to… Continue reading
LlamaIndex: The Data Framework for Building Production RAG Applications
Introduction: LlamaIndex (formerly GPT Index) is the leading data framework for building LLM applications over your private data. While LangChain focuses on chains and agents, LlamaIndex specializes in data ingestion, indexing, and retrieval—the core components of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). With over 160 data connectors through LlamaHub, sophisticated indexing strategies, and production-ready query engines, LlamaIndex… Continue reading
Azure Application Gateway: A Solutions Architect’s Guide to Regional Load Balancing and WAF
While Azure Front Door excels at global load balancing, many enterprise scenarios require regional application delivery with deep integration into virtual network architectures. Azure Application Gateway fills this niche perfectly, providing Layer 7 load balancing with integrated Web Application Firewall capabilities within a single Azure region. Having architected countless regional application delivery solutions over my… Continue reading
Getting Started with React and ViteJS: Enterprise-Grade Frontend Scaffolding Guide
Building modern React applications shouldn’t feel like wrestling with complex toolchains. Vite has fundamentally changed how we approach frontend development, offering lightning-fast builds and an exceptional developer experience that enterprise teams are increasingly adopting. Introduction This guide walks you through setting up a production-ready React application using Vite as your build tool. We’ll cover project… Continue reading
Global Traffic Distribution with Google Cloud Load Balancing and CDN: Enterprise Edge Architecture
Introduction: Google Cloud Load Balancing and Cloud CDN provide enterprise-grade traffic distribution and content delivery for global applications. This comprehensive guide explores load balancing architectures, from HTTP(S) load balancers and TCP/UDP proxies to internal load balancing and traffic management policies. After implementing global load balancing for applications serving billions of requests daily, I’ve found Google’s… Continue reading
Quantization Methods for LLMs: GPTQ, AWQ, and BitsAndBytes
Last year, I needed to run a 13B parameter model on a 16GB GPU. Full precision required 52GB. After testing GPTQ, AWQ, and BitsAndBytes, I reduced memory to 7GB with minimal accuracy loss. After quantizing 30+ models, I’ve learned which method works best for each scenario. Here’s the complete guide to LLM quantization. Figure 1:… Continue reading