CloudTales · cloud architecture blog
Practical Azure architecture for security, identity, and regulated workloads.
Infrastructure design, Microsoft Entra, Azure, Windows Server, Linux fundamentals and real-world technology decisions, by Vassilis Dionisopoulos. Every article can also be heard, narrated by an Azure neural voice.
Do You Need a Blockchain? Ten Years of Banking Already Answered
Every year or two, someone asks me whether a project should “go on the blockchain”. Sometimes it is a bank, sometimes a public body, and once it was a loyalty programme. The question always arrives with a lot of enthusiasm and very few requirements. In …
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Zero-Key Architecture on Azure: I Disabled Every Key
There is an audio player at the top of this post. Press play, and an Azure neural voice reads the article to you. The pipeline behind that player touches Azure Functions, Azure AI Speech, …
I Asked the Domain Controller for a Ticket. It Handed Me a Service Account Password.
I did not break into anything. I did not exploit a bug. I logged in as the most powerless user in the domain — no admin rights, no special group, nothing — and I asked the domain controller …
I Watched One Stolen Hash Walk Into a Second Machine. Then LAPS Shut the Door.
Everyone knows pass-the-hash is dangerous. Almost nobody has watched it happen on their own network. There is a wide gap between two things. One is reading “an attacker can reuse a local …
Fail-Closed VPN Gateway on Linux: A Design Deep Dive
A fail-closed VPN gateway routes selected devices through a VPN tunnel and guarantees one thing above all else. If the tunnel drops, those devices lose internet access instead of leaking to …
Azure Budgets Don't Stop Anything — The Enforcement Gap and How to Close It
Most teams treat an Azure budget as a brake. They pick a number, assume the platform will slow spending down once costs reach it, and move on. That assumption fails the first weekend someone …
Azure Cache for Redis Retirement: The Real Cost of Migrating to Azure Managed Redis
The Azure Cache for Redis retirement is not a SKU cleanup and it is not a rename. It is a forced platform transition to Azure Managed Redis (AMR) with a deadline attached. If you treat it as …
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