Azure That Plays Nice with Microsoft Stacks
We design and run Azure workloads for the teams that already live in Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Active Directory, SQL Server, .NET, and Power Platform — and want their cloud to feel like an extension of that, not a parallel universe. Right-sized, governed, identity-first, and connected to the rest of your Microsoft estate without the usual hybrid pain.
Your Azure tenant isn't broken.
It just grew without a plan.
Most Azure environments we walk into started as one subscription, one engineer, one MSDN credit, and grew sideways from there. No management groups, no policy, no naming convention, identity half in AD and half in Entra, and a SQL Server VM that should have been an Azure SQL Database three years ago. We tidy it up the Microsoft-recommended way, without burning your business down to do it.
One subscription holding everything
Prod, dev, sandbox, the intern's test, and that one VM nobody wants to turn off. No blast radius, no policy boundary, no chargeback, no clean delete.
Identity is a maze
On-prem AD, Entra ID, Entra Connect that hasn't been touched in two years, conditional access with overlapping rules, guest accounts from a vendor you stopped using in 2022. MFA "mostly" enforced.
Reserved Instances bought, then forgotten
A previous consultant bought a 3-year RI for a VM SKU you no longer run. The savings plan covers nothing. Hybrid Use Benefit isn't turned on. The bill reflects all of it.
What You Actually Get
No vague deliverables. Here's exactly what lands in your hands.
A CAF-aligned landing zone
Management groups, subscription vending, policy, naming, tagging, hub-and-spoke networking. Built the way Microsoft's own Cloud Adoption Framework recommends, not improvised.
Bicep or Terraform in your repo
Everything as code, modules you can read, state managed properly, deployed via Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions. The whole tenant reproducible from git.
Identity cleaned up and locked down
Entra ID hardened, conditional access rationalised, PIM for privileged roles, break-glass accounts, guest access reviewed, AD Connect healthy and monitored.
A right-sizing and licensing plan
Azure Advisor + our own audit, mapped against Reservations, Savings Plans, Hybrid Use Benefit, dev/test pricing, and the licences you already pay Microsoft for.
A Real Azure & Microsoft Stack Team
Azure works best when the people running it understand the rest of the Microsoft estate too. Six roles you get on every engagement.
Azure Solutions Architect
Designs the landing zone, the network, the data flow. Knows when Azure SQL beats SQL MI, when AKS beats App Service, and when Functions are the right answer.
Identity & Entra Engineer
Hybrid AD, Entra ID, conditional access, PIM, B2B/B2C. Has untangled more conditional access policies than they'd like to admit.
Platform / DevOps Engineer
Bicep, Terraform, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, self-hosted agents. Owns the pipelines and the policy-as-code.
FinOps Lead
Owns the bill. Reservations, Savings Plans, Hybrid Use Benefit, dev/test subs, chargeback views via Cost Management + tagging.
Cloud Security Engineer
Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, Key Vault, Purview, private endpoints. Knows the difference between "secure score 90" and "actually secure".
SRE / On-Call Lead
Designs SLOs, alerting via Azure Monitor + Log Analytics + Action Groups, and the runbooks that make alerts actionable.
You See Everything. In Real Time.
Every Pillai Infotech project comes with a dedicated client dashboard. Kanban boards, live logs, test results, meeting notes — it's all visible the moment it happens. No status-report theatre, no "we'll get back to you", no surprises at the demo. You work with us like you work with your own team.
Kanban Board, Live
Every epic, every story, every task — visible on your dashboard. Drag, comment, reprioritize. It's the same board our team works from.
Documented Everything
Every decision, spec, API contract, and architecture diagram lives in the dashboard. Searchable, versioned, linked to the tasks they shaped.
Live Logs & Test Results
Build logs, deployment logs, test suite results — streamed to your dashboard the moment they run. You never have to ask "did the build pass?"
Meetings → Tasks, Automatically
Every meeting is recorded, transcribed, and every action point is auto-converted into a tracked task assigned to the right person. Nothing gets lost between calls.
Sprint Burndown & Velocity
See exactly how much work is done, how much remains, and our velocity over time. If a sprint is slipping, you see it the same moment we do.
Comment, Approve, Decide — In-Place
Comment on any task, approve designs, sign off on specs, and raise blockers directly in the dashboard. Everything tied to the work, not buried in email threads.
Azure Workloads We Run Without Drama
We pick the Azure service that fits the workload, not the one with the prettiest icon.
🌐 .NET web & API workloads
App Service or Container Apps in front, Azure SQL or Cosmos behind, Front Door or Application Gateway for delivery. The path of least surprise for .NET teams.
📦 AKS & containerised platforms
AKS sized to the team's actual ability to operate it. We pick Container Apps or App Service first — AKS only when you've earned it.
⚡ Functions & event pipelines
Azure Functions, Service Bus, Event Grid, Logic Apps, Durable Functions. For workloads that are bursty, scheduled, or genuinely event-driven.
🗃️ Data platforms & analytics
Synapse, Fabric, Data Lake Storage Gen2, Databricks, Purview for governance, Power BI on top. Built for the lakehouse pattern, not a 2014 data warehouse.
🤖 AI workloads on Azure OpenAI
Azure OpenAI, AI Search, AI Foundry, content safety, private network deployment. Right-sized so a single rogue endpoint can't drain the budget overnight.
🏢 Hybrid & on-prem integration
Azure Arc, ExpressRoute, VPN, Azure Stack HCI, Azure SQL Managed Instance. For the workloads that genuinely have to live half on-prem.
The Azure Stack We Use
Microsoft-recommended defaults first. Exotic services only when they earn their keep.
Compute & Containers
Data & Storage
Identity & Security
Delivery & Ops
A Six-Stage Azure Delivery Process
Aligned to Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework, but stripped of the slideware.
Tenant & Bill Audit
Read-only access for one week. We map every subscription, resource group, identity, and cost driver, and produce a written audit with prioritised findings.
Landing Zone & Governance
Management groups, policy, naming, tagging, hub-and-spoke networking, Defender baseline. The foundation that stops the next sprawl.
Architecture Design
A target architecture in writing, with diagrams, trade-offs, and a monthly cost model. You see the bill before we provision a thing.
Build in IaC
Bicep or Terraform modules, pull-requested into your repo. What-if reviewed before every deployment. No portal clicks.
Cutover & Validation
Migration windows, smoke tests, rollback plan rehearsed. SLOs and Action Groups wired up before traffic hits.
Handover or Run
Either we hand the keys back with documentation and training, or we keep operating it on a managed-services retainer. Your call.
Three Ways to Engage
Pick the engagement that matches the state of your tenant today.
Azure Audit Sprint
Two-week deep dive: cost, identity, security, reliability, IaC readiness. You get a written report and a prioritised action list — no obligation to use us for the fix.
- Cost + identity + security audit
- Right-sizing and licensing model
- Written report you own
Build or Re-Platform
Fixed-scope engagement to design and ship a new workload, or re-platform an existing one onto a clean CAF-aligned landing zone.
- Fixed scope, fixed price
- Typical: 6–14 weeks
- Full Bicep/Terraform handover
Managed Azure Retainer
Ongoing operation: on-call, patching, cost reviews, identity hygiene, security posture, capacity planning.
- 24/7 on-call available
- Monthly cost & posture review
- Quarterly architecture review
Honest Answers to Azure Reality Questions
The questions every smart buyer asks before signing. Here's what we tell them.
Can you really cut our Azure bill 30%+?
On a typical un-audited tenant, yes — 25–40% in the first 90 days is the usual range. Most of it comes from right-sizing, dev/test subscriptions, Hybrid Use Benefit, Reservations and Savings Plans on actual baselines, and switching legacy IaaS SQL Server VMs to Azure SQL or SQL MI. We won't promise it without seeing the bill.
AKS or App Service / Container Apps?
App Service or Container Apps unless you have a real platform team. AKS is more powerful and far more expensive in operator time. Most teams that pick AKS first regret it within a year. We'll tell you which one fits your team, not which looks better on a CV.
Bicep or Terraform?
Bicep if you're Azure-only and your team is Microsoft-native — it's lighter and the docs are excellent. Terraform if you're multi-cloud or your team already uses it. Both are fine. The wrong answer is portal clicks.
How do you handle Entra ID and hybrid AD?
We assess Entra Connect health first, fix sync issues, then rationalise conditional access (most tenants have 3x the policies they need), enforce MFA universally, set up PIM for privileged roles, create proper break-glass accounts, and review guest access. Identity is the new perimeter and we treat it that way.
Should we move SQL Server VMs to Azure SQL?
Usually yes — Azure SQL Database for new workloads, SQL Managed Instance when you need SQL Agent, cross-database queries, or CLR. IaaS SQL on a VM is the most expensive way to run SQL on Azure unless you have a very specific reason. We'll do a compatibility assessment before recommending the move.
What about Microsoft 365 and Power Platform integration?
That's where Azure shines for Microsoft-stack teams. We integrate Azure workloads with Entra ID, SharePoint, Teams, Dataverse, and Power Platform so users get one identity, one permission model, and Power Apps / Power Automate can talk to your Azure APIs without hacks.
Can you handle compliance — ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA?
Yes. Azure has the certifications; we configure the tenant to inherit them properly: Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance dashboards, Sentinel for SIEM, Purview for data classification, Key Vault for secrets, encryption everywhere, access reviews, evidence collection.
Who owns the Azure tenant?
You do. Always. Tenant in your company name, billing in your name, Global Admin break-glass accounts in your safe, IaC in your GitHub or Azure DevOps. We work inside it as delegated principals via PIM.
Multi-region and DR?
Most workloads do not need active-active across regions — it doubles your bill and your bug surface. We design for the recovery objective you actually need: backup-restore, pilot light, warm standby, or active-active. We tell you the cost and let you choose.
Can you sign an NDA before we share details?
Always. NDA before the first call. The audit can run on read-only access only until trust is earned.