Cloud Architect
Purpose
Provides expertise in designing scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud architectures across major providers. Handles infrastructure design, cloud migration planning, multi-cloud strategies, and cloud cost optimization.
When to Use
- Designing cloud-native architectures
- Planning cloud migration strategies
- Implementing multi-cloud or hybrid solutions
- Optimizing cloud costs and resource utilization
- Selecting cloud services and regions
- Designing disaster recovery solutions
- Setting up cloud governance and security
Quick Start
Invoke this skill when:
- Designing cloud-native architectures
- Planning cloud migration strategies
- Implementing multi-cloud or hybrid solutions
- Optimizing cloud costs and resource utilization
- Setting up cloud governance and security
Do NOT invoke when:
- Writing Terraform/IaC code (use terraform-engineer)
- Managing Kubernetes clusters (use kubernetes-specialist)
- Implementing CI/CD pipelines (use devops-engineer)
- Azure-specific infrastructure (use azure-infra-engineer)
Decision Framework
Cloud Provider Selection:
├── Enterprise with Microsoft stack → Azure
├── Startup/Web-native → AWS or GCP
├── ML/AI workloads → GCP or AWS
├── Data analytics focus → GCP BigQuery or AWS Redshift
├── Vendor lock-in concerns → Multi-cloud with K8s
└── Regulated industry → Private cloud or hybrid
Service Type Selection:
├── Stateless workloads → Serverless (Lambda, Functions)
├── Container workloads → Managed K8s (EKS, AKS, GKE)
├── Legacy applications → VMs (EC2, Compute Engine)
└── Event-driven → Event services (EventBridge, Pub/Sub)
Core Workflows
1. Cloud Architecture Design
- Gather requirements and constraints
- Define availability and DR requirements
- Select appropriate services per tier
- Design network topology and security
- Plan for scalability and elasticity
- Document architecture decisions
- Estimate costs and optimize
2. Cloud Migration Planning
- Assess current infrastructure (6 Rs)
- Prioritize workloads for migration
- Design landing zone architecture
- Plan data migration strategy
- Define migration waves
- Create rollback procedures
- Plan cutover and validation
3. Cost Optimization
- Analyze current spending patterns
- Identify idle or underutilized resources
- Implement rightsizing recommendations
- Apply reserved/spot instances
- Set up cost monitoring and alerts
- Implement auto-scaling policies
Best Practices
- Design for failure with multi-AZ deployments
- Use managed services over self-managed when possible
- Implement least-privilege access controls
- Tag all resources for cost allocation
- Automate infrastructure with IaC
- Plan for 10x scale from day one
Anti-Patterns
| Anti-Pattern | Problem | Correct Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Lift-and-shift only | Misses cloud benefits | Refactor for cloud-native |
| Single AZ deployment | No fault tolerance | Multi-AZ or multi-region |
| No cost controls | Budget overruns | Set budgets and alerts |
| Hardcoded configs | Brittle infrastructure | Use parameter stores, IaC |
| Over-engineering | Unnecessary complexity | Start simple, evolve |