Cloud Solutions Architect
Organizational Context
The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), part of the UN Secretariat, operates under the UN Economic and Social Council. This role is within the Decision-Support and Data Science Division (DSDSD), which drives modernization and innovation through advanced analytics and digital platforms. DSDSD supports ESCWA, other UN entities, and Member States, leveraging hybrid infrastructure and cloud technologies for critical digital assets.
Job Purpose
This role serves to provide expert architectural analysis, cost-optimization assessment, and technical solution design to facilitate the migration of core application workloads from on-premises Proxmox virtual machines to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The consultant will collaborate closely with development and infrastructure teams to audit existing applications, analyze resource utilization, and design tailored Azure cloud architectures. The objective is to ensure a seamless, cost-effective, and high-performance transition, delivering actionable specifications for the internal teams to execute the migration and deployment, thereby enhancing ESCWA's digital decision-support capabilities and operational efficiency.
Responsibilities
Key responsibilities include conducting thorough application audits and workload assessments, working with development teams to gather technical requirements and analyze on-premises Proxmox VM resource metrics, compute demands, and architectural dependencies. The role involves designing tailored Azure cloud architecture topologies and migration runbooks, evaluating and recommending IaaS versus PaaS deployment models for applications. Additionally, the consultant will formulate step-by-step migration blueprints, conduct cost-benefit analyses for Azure resource allocation, and provide recommendations for right-sizing virtual machines, storage, and databases. Providing technical guidance on optimal Azure deployment pathways, identity management, access controls, security baselines, and performance monitoring strategies is also crucial.
Work Experience
A minimum of 4 years of professional experience in cloud systems architecture, IT infrastructure analysis, or enterprise cloud solutions design is required. Demonstrated experience in designing, evaluating, or auditing cloud infrastructure solutions on Microsoft Azure is essential. Practical experience migrating workloads from on-premises hypervisors like Proxmox VE or VMware to Microsoft Azure is highly desirable.
Skills
Cloud architecture design, Microsoft Azure, IaaS vs. PaaS evaluation, cost optimization, resource right-sizing, application workload assessment, migration strategy development, technical guidance, Azure AD/Entra ID, Azure Monitor/Log Analytics.