Gowrisha

Azure Cloud Architect · Infrastructure

Gowrisha C. Vishwa Kumar

I design cloud platforms that regulators can't complain about and engineers actually want to use. 12+ years in Azure. Based in Germany.

Germany (open to relocation)

Who I Am

I'm a cloud architect who builds Azure infrastructure for banks. That's the short version.

The longer version: I've spent the last two and a half years at Santander Bank in Germany designing the Azure platform from the ground up. Landing zones, hub-spoke networking, Terraform modules, CI/CD pipelines, identity governance, security monitoring. Before that, five years migrating workloads across Azure, AWS, and GCP, and two years before that managing VMware and network infrastructure at NetApp.

I like taking messy, manual environments and turning them into something automated, governed, and repeatable. At Santander, Azure was managed through the portal when I joined. Now everything runs through Terraform and pipelines.

When I'm not building infrastructure, I'm usually somewhere with a camera. Photography and solo travel keep me sane. I'm based in Germany and planning to stay.

Workspace desk setup

Career Timeline

Sep 2023 — Present
Cloud Solutions Architect
Santander Bank
Leading Azure platform design for a regulated banking environment with landing zones, governance, networking, and automation.
Aug 2022 — May 2023
Azure Cloud Architect
Sopra Steria
Designed Azure architecture patterns and delivery foundations for enterprise cloud transformation initiatives.
Oct 2021 — Jul 2022
Associate Technical Lead
Tech Mahindra (acq. Brainscale)
Bridged architecture and delivery, guiding infrastructure modernization and cloud execution across teams.
Oct 2017 — Oct 2021
Cloud Consultant
Brainscale Inc
Delivered migrations, disaster recovery, and cloud optimization projects across Azure, AWS, and GCP environments.
Jun 2015 — Oct 2017
Systems Engineer, VMware & VDI
NetApp Inc
Built the core infrastructure foundation in virtualization, networking, and end-user platform operations.

Impact by the Numbers

190TBData MigratedAWS to Azure, zero loss
25%Cost ReductionCloud spend at Santander
40%Less Manual WorkTerraform automation
50+Workloads MigratedTo Azure production
99.9%UptimeHybrid Azure+AWS
12→4hDR RecoveryTime improvement
20%Fewer IncidentsSecurity posture gain
10+YearsCloud & infrastructure

Tech Stack

Azure
Terraform
Bicep
ARM Templates
Entra ID
Azure Policy
Sentinel
Defender for Cloud
Key Vault
Hub-Spoke
Azure DevOps
GitHub Actions
PowerShell
Python
Docker
Kubernetes
VMware
AVD
Linux
FinOps

Education

MCAGITAM University2020
BCATamil Nadu Open University2014
German A1Goethe / TELC2025

Projects

Azure Landing ZoneBuilt the Azure landing zone at Santander from scratch. Management group hierarchy, subscription model, hub-spoke with centralized firewall, Policy guardrails, identity governance through Entra ID. All Terraform. This became the foundation for every cloud workload in the bank.
TerraformAzure PolicyEntra IDHub-SpokeFirewall
Cloud-to-Cloud MigrationMigrated 190TB from AWS S3 to Azure Blob at Brainscale. AzCopy for incremental, Data Box for bulk, Data Factory for orchestration. Waves: non-critical first, production in maintenance windows. Checksum validation at every stage. Zero data loss. 25% cost reduction via lifecycle policies.
AzCopyData FactoryData BoxBlob Storage
BCDR StrategyCut DR recovery time from 12 hours to 4 at Brainscale. Classified workloads by criticality, set up Azure Site Recovery for continuous VM replication, built automated failover runbooks. Tested quarterly. The client passed their business continuity compliance audit for the first time.
ASRRecovery PlansAutomationBackup
Cost OptimizationBanking regs require 10 years of data retention. Old backups on expensive NetApp storage were costing a fortune. Designed tiered archival: recent on NetApp, older to Blob Cool, compliance-only to Archive. Lifecycle policies automate tiering. Immutable storage with legal hold for compliance.
Blob StorageLifecycle MgmtFinOpsAzure Policy

Certifications

Solutions Architect ExpertAZ-305
DevOps Engineer ExpertAZ-400
AVD SpecialtyAZ-140
Azure AdministratorAZ-104
Terraform AssociateTA-003 · HashiCorp
Google CloudUpdate cert name
Red HatUpdate cert name

Expertise Areas

Cloud Architecture
Infrastructure as Code
Security & Governance
CI/CD & DevOps
Cost Optimization
Virtualization

Get in Touch

Looking for Cloud Architect and Infrastructure roles in Germany. Let's talk.

Email Me