Who is Chris Hailes?
I’m a cloud architect, consultant, writer, and Microsoft MVP who spends most of his time helping organisations design, secure, and modernise Azure environments. Brewed in the Cloud is where I share the practical lessons that come from real-world delivery work: the patterns that scale, the trade-offs that matter, and the mistakes worth avoiding.
The Technologist
My background spans infrastructure, networking, security, architecture, and platform design, with more than two decades working across enterprise technology. While Azure is the main focus here, I care less about hype and more about building environments that are secure, resilient, observable, and actually workable for the teams who run them day to day.
The Writer, Teacher & Advocate
I learn best by breaking things down and explaining them clearly, which is exactly why this site exists. I write for architects, engineers, consultants, and technical leaders who want practical guidance rather than marketing gloss. That means content grounded in implementation details, operational reality, and the broader why behind good technical decisions.
The Professional
My work usually sits at the intersection of cloud strategy and hands-on delivery: landing zones, networking, security controls, governance, monitoring, identity, and operating model decisions that shape how platforms behave over time. If a design looks great on a diagram but falls apart in production, that’s the kind of gap I’m interested in closing.
What you’ll find here
- Azure architecture, networking, identity, and security content with a strong practical bias.
- Lessons from consulting, delivery, and platform operations translated into clear, usable guidance.
- Occasional reflections on community, career growth, tooling, and the process of learning in public.
Connect
If you’d like to learn more, connect, or dive deeper into my background, these links are a good place to start: