Vladimir Stefanovic
Cloud Architect | Microsoft Azure MVP
Breda, The Netherlands
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20+ years in IT infrastructure, 10 years architecting Azure solutions at scale. I help organizations design cloud systems that are technically sound, cost-efficient, and built to last.
As an Azure MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer for over a decade, I work with companies, from startups to enterprises, to navigate complex Azure deployments, avoid costly mistakes, and build teams that can sustain these systems long-term. I regularly speak at conferences and contribute to the community through writing and mentoring.
I believe great architecture starts with understanding your business constraints, not just the technology. That philosophy shapes how I approach designing solutions, training teams, and advising on strategy.
When I'm not building scalable systems, you'll find me traveling and spending time with family.
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Hub-and-Spoke is Dead: Navigating the Reality of Virtual WAN and Virtual Network Manager
The days of manually wiring up Hub-and-Spoke networks are over, but the replacement is anything but simple. We now have two heavyweights, Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN) and Azure Virtual Network Manager (AVNM), and most people are struggling to decide whether to pick a side or try to make them work together. While vWAN provides a managed, high-performance "infrastructure as a service" hub, AVNM offers the "management as a service" layer that can orchestrate connectivity across any VNet.
This session cuts through the noise to show you exactly when these services are rivals and when they are partners. We will dive into the technical "scars" of managing both: why AVNM’s connectivity groups can sometimes conflict with vWAN’s managed routing, how to handle the "split-brain" management that occurs when you use them together, and the specific architecture where vWAN provides the muscle while AVNM provides the brains.
If you are struggling to decide which architecture to bet on, this session will give you the definitive "why" and "when."
The $50,000 Log Analytics Bill: Architecting Observability That Doesn’t Bankrupt You
Most Azure monitoring setups suffer from a "visibility paradox": we ingest massive amounts of data, yet we struggle to find the one log that actually matters during an incident. The default "log everything" approach doesn't just inflate your bill; it creates a sea of noise that hides critical insights. If you aren't actively managing your ingestion-time data, you’re likely paying for a lot of data that will never be queried.
In this session, we’ll move from passive logging to active data management. I’ll share the exact KQL transformations I use to strip out noise before it hits disk, and how to strategically use Basic vs. Analytics logs to save on long-term storage. We’ll finish by looking at how to build meaningful Azure Workbooks that visualize this refined data, ensuring your dashboards show you actionable insights rather than just expensive clutter.
It’s time to architect a monitoring system that justifies its own invoice.
The Architect’s Warehouse: Building a Global, Self-Healing Infrastructure from Scratch
Standard setup guides work fine for simple projects, but they fall apart when you’re responsible for a global footprint where downtime has real-world consequences. If you're managing fifty sites across multiple continents, you can't afford to handle every networking glitch or security update manually. You need an environment that is built to be consistent, easy to manage, and capable of recovering from common failures without your intervention.
This full-day tutorial is about the reality of running a massive Azure environment. We’ll spend the day moving through the four core pillars of a solid architecture: getting your account structure right, fixing your global networking, automating your deployments, and making sure your security and governance actually work in the real world. Drawing from years of experience in the global logistics sector, I’ll share the actual technical trade-offs we made and the mistakes we fixed so you can build a more resilient system.
Zero Trust Networking in a Hybrid World
Your perimeter is gone. Users work from coffee shops, contractors access production from home, and your most critical workloads run in Azure. Traditional firewalls and VPNs can't protect you anymore, but most organizations struggle to implement Zero Trust without breaking everything.
This session walks you through building Zero Trust networking in a real hybrid environment. You'll learn how to implement micro-segmentation without disrupting existing applications, configure Entra ID conditional access policies that actually work with your network architecture, and use Azure Private Link to eliminate internet exposure for critical services. We'll troubleshoot common Azure Firewall misconfigurations, demonstrate lateral movement prevention with network security groups, and show you how to validate your Zero Trust posture using Defender for Cloud, without the $200K consulting bill.
AI-Assisted IaC: Fast, Convincing, and Dangerous
AI can generate a Terraform module, a Bicep template, or an entire Landing Zone scaffold in seconds. It looks right. It deploys. And that is exactly where the danger begins.
In this session, I share what AI-assisted IaC actually looks like in production. The misconfigured things that quietly cost money, the compliance gaps that survived code review, and the field lessons that demos never show you.
And when AI agents with MCP servers enter the picture, the stakes go up. Something is authenticating to your environment, making decisions, and applying changes. Did you think carefully about who you handed the keys to?
I have seen what happens when that question comes up too late. This session is about asking it early.
Vladimir Stefanovic
Cloud Architect | Microsoft Azure MVP
Breda, The Netherlands
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