Case study
Global Infrastructure Modernisation
Modernised enterprise infrastructure at scale — ~1,000 VMs, segmented networks, multi-region cloud migration.
- VMware
- Azure
- SD-WAN
- Aruba ClearPass
- FortiGate
- Microsoft 365
Problem
Enterprise estates accrete. Flat networks, sprawling VM counts, aging firewalls, and on-prem-only services become a security and operations drag. The work: modernise without breaking a global business that runs 24/7.
Constraints
- Keep the lights on — change a live, multi-region estate without downtime.
- Security and compliance — segmentation, patching, and auditability throughout.
- Cost-aware — modernise to cloud where it pays, not for its own sake.
Design
Across global roles I ran and improved a ~1,000-VM VMware estate and re-segmented flat sites into isolated VLAN ranges, layering in SD-WAN and Aruba ClearPass onboarding for a tiered, authenticated network. Palo Alto / FortiGate firewalls were upgraded and redesigned around the new segmentation. Workloads and identity moved to Azure (Blob, AVS) and Microsoft 365 — including an ERP hardware refresh with a new DR solution, and a region-wide PBX-to-VoIP migration.
Security & reliability decisions
- Flat → segmented — isolation by design, not by exception.
- Authenticated access (ClearPass, 802.1x) — the network knows who’s on it.
- Patched, current firewalls — closing the easy doors first.
- DR built in — recovery designed, not assumed.
Outcome
A more secure, segmented, cloud-leaning estate that’s cheaper to run and easier to operate — delivered against live-business constraints across multiple regions.
Future improvements
The throughline from this work to the edge platforms: take the same segmentation and identity rigour and express it as code, so a thousand-VM estate and a single edge node are governed the same way.