Microsoft Intelligent Cloud Architect Boot Camp

Akins IT • September 6, 2017

I got in! I'm ready to evolve my game and after successfully applying for admission to this fantastic event I couldn’t be more excited. The boot camp is being held at Microsoft HQ - the Mothership, in Bellevue, Washington.

Attendees get to spend a week there learning from the best, refining knowledge and adjusting to new best practices and cloud engineering tactics. There are lectures, break-out sessions and hand-on hackathons!

I promise to come back with refined skills in solution architecture in Azure, cloud security, availability and recovery methodologies. I am also extremely interested in learning about the newest use cases for Microsoft Artificial Intelligence technology, which there is quite a heavy focus on.

A big thanks goes out to my team, in advance, for covering for me while I am out and to Shawn Akins, who continues to back my growth and encourages mastery in our field.

If you are interested in applying, see below. Boot camp description and links included.

You can register here.

Details:

Advanced Technical Training for Cloud and Data Platform Architects

In an increasingly digital world, people, not technology will disrupt the status quo.

As an IT pro working amid the opportunity of digital transformation, you’re going to be asked to do things differently. You’ll need deep skills, expertise, and confidence to implement meaningful technical solutions that meet advanced customer needs. We’re investing big in helping you develop that skill set with the Intelligent Cloud Architect Boot Camp.

Upon completion, participants will be better able to:

· Architect solutions in the Microsoft cloud and data platform

· Develop and present impactful and convincing solutions to customers

· Respond to objections appropriately

Learning Experience

Five-day in-person immersion - part of the Microsoft technical readiness strategy

· Solution update sessions, and direct access to Microsoft engineering experts

· Daily whiteboard architectural design sessions and hands-on hackathons

· Collaborative engagement between Microsoft employees and partners

Together in partnership with Microsoft Engineering, the event content includes foundational and keynote sessions in addition to specialized tracks aligned to the Intelligent Cloud solution areas: Azure Infrastructure, Cloud Application Development, and Data & Artificial Intelligence. Sample topics are listed below and additional agenda details can be found HERE.Throughout the week partner attendees will have the opportunity to choose additional hands-on sessions in lieu of select lecture sessions (as space permits).

Azure Infrastructure topics Compute including Containers, Storage, Networking, ARM, Security and Compliance, and Management Tools

Cloud Application Development topics: Service Fabric/Microservices, DevOps, Media Services, Application Services, and Mobile application development.

Data & Artificial Intelligence topics: Core Data Platform (Azure Data Services, Mission Critical & Tier 1 Workloads, Lift and Shift operations, competitive migrations), Artificial Intelligence (Cognitive and Bots), Advanced Analytics (Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Azure ML, R/Python), IoT (IoT solutions)

Attendee Profile

The Intelligent Cloud Architect Boot Camp is a level 300-400 advanced technical training oriented to those in an architectural role with focus on Azure Infrastructure, Cloud Application Development, or Data and Artificial Intelligence workloads at partner organizations, and who have knowledge on Azure workloads, developing code or deploying solutions in the cloud.

This training is NOT appropriate for those with only basic or intermediate knowledge of Azure nor appropriate for those in sales roles.

The following outlines the architect role responsibilities and the experiences required to successfully participate and complete the training. Three tracks are being offered at the Intelligent Cloud Architect Boot Camp in October. Use the guidelines below to determine which track is best for you to attend.

Key Responsibilities

· Drive deployment of customer workloads into Azure and increase their consumption of the platform by providing deployment guidance, supporting development of the customers’ cloud adoption model, and providing appropriate recommendations to overcome blockers.

· Identify, validate, and grow opportunities to accelerate consumption in customer environments, by driving solution architecture for both Microsoft and 3rd party solutions.

· Design, implement, manage or support solutions in customer environments by providing deep technical expertise in one of the following areas of specialization: Datacenter Transformation, Custom Applications, Managed Services, and Data and Analytics.

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AWS stumbled this morning. Here’s why multi‑cloud keeps you moving.

By Shawn Akins • October 20, 2025

October 20, 2025 — Early today, Amazon Web Services experienced a major incident centered in its US‑EAST‑1 (N. Virginia) region. AWS reports the event began around 12:11 a.m. PT and tied back to DNS resolution affecting DynamoDB , with mitigation within a couple of hours and recovery continuing thereafter. As the outage rippled, popular services like Snapchat, Venmo, Ring, Roblox, Fortnite , and even some Amazon properties saw disruptions before recovering. If your apps or data are anchored to a single cloud, a morning like this can turn into a help‑desk fire drill. A multi‑cloud or cloud‑smart approach helps you ride through these moments with minimal end‑user impact. What happened (and why it matters) Single‑region fragility: US‑EAST‑1 is massive—and when it sneezes, the internet catches a cold. Incidents here have a history of wide blast radius. Shared dependencies: DNS issues to core services (like DynamoDB endpoints) can cascade across workloads that never directly “touch” that service. Multi‑cloud: practical resilience, not buzzwords For mid‑sized orgs, schools, and local government, multi‑cloud doesn’t have to mean “every app in every cloud.” It means thoughtful redundancy where it counts : Multi‑region or multi‑provider failover for critical apps Run active/standby across AWS and Azure (or another provider), or at least across two AWS regions with automated failover. Start with citizen‑facing portals, SIS/LMS access, emergency comms, and payment gateways. Portable platforms Use Kubernetes and containers, keep state externalized, and standardize infra with Terraform/Ansible so you can redeploy fast when a region (or a provider) wobbles. (Today’s DNS hiccup is exactly the kind of scenario this protects against.) Resilient data layers Replicate data asynchronously across clouds/regions; choose databases with cross‑region failover and test RPO/RTO quarterly. If you rely on a managed database tied to one region, design an escape hatch. Traffic and identity that float Use global traffic managers/DNS to shift users automatically; keep identity (MFA/SSO) highly available and not hard‑wired to a single provider’s control plane. Run the playbook Document health checks, automated cutover, and comms templates. Then practice —tabletops and live failovers. Many services today recovered within hours, but only teams with rehearsed playbooks avoided user‑visible downtime. The bottom line Cloud concentration risk is real. Outages will happen—what matters is whether your constituents, students, and staff feel it. A pragmatic multi‑cloud stance limits the blast radius and keeps your mission‑critical services online when one provider has a bad day. Need a resilience check? Akins IT can help you prioritize which systems should be multi‑cloud, design the right level of redundancy, and validate your failover plan—without overspending. Let’s start with a quick, 30‑minute review of your most critical services and RPO/RTO targets. (No slideware, just actionable next steps.)