Cloud Architecture Series – Identity, Platforms, Autonomy
Cloud conversations usually start with tools.
But real cloud architecture isn’t about services, vendors, or feature lists. It’s about control — who can act, how systems are shaped, and where trust actually lives when complexity increases.
This page collects a series of essays I’m writing in 2026 exploring foundational cloud decisions that teams revisit again and again but rarely resolve.
These aren’t frameworks. They’re thinking in public.
What this series is about
Across identity, platforms, autonomy, and control, one question keeps surfacing:
Where does authority live — and can we still explain it when systems move at machine speed?
Expert Mode, No Guardrails — But With Control
Published: January 6, 2026
A foundational essay on how cloud environments drift into “expert mode” — fast, flexible, and complex — and why control doesn’t disappear, it simply moves to places we don’t always see.
Identity First: The Only Control Plane That Survives Every Cloud Decision
Published: January 13, 2026
Explores why identity — user, device, and code — is the only control plane that remains consistent across platforms, services, and clouds when everything else changes.
Platform First: Paved Roads, Freedom, and the Cost of Both
Published: January 20, 2026
Examines how platforms shape how work actually happens, why paved roads reduce risk, and how guardrails can create either alignment or friction depending on how they evolve.
Agentic AI Isn’t Breaking Systems — It’s Exposing What We’ve Been Ignoring
Published: January 27, 2026
Looks at how autonomous AI systems act as a stress test for identity models, trust assumptions, and platform guardrails — revealing architectural gaps that were already there.
Single-Cloud First: Discipline, Not Dogma
Published: February 2, 2026
Makes the case that single-cloud first is about operational discipline, not vendor loyalty — and why most second-cloud decisions are driven by timing pressures rather than true technical necessity.
Single-Cloud First Was the Discipline — Now Let’s Talk About Movement
Published: February 9, 2026
This post moves the cloud conversation from philosophy to execution. It focuses on how to decide what workloads move, what stays, and how to avoid hybrid sprawl by using business impact and service classification as the guide. The core idea: cloud strategy isn’t platform strategy — it’s workload strategy driven by intentional sequencing.