Architecture advice and implementation for clients who run on Microsoft Azure or are considering it. We design scalable, secure and cost-efficient Azure environments — and build them ourselves. Vendor-neutral: we know AWS and GCP just as well, and we won't choose Azure if something else is a better fit.
Azure consulting at Appfront is not an abstract architecture exercise separate from delivery. For years we have worked with Microsoft Azure for clients running production workloads on the platform: web applications, customer portals, data platforms, integration layers and, increasingly, AI solutions built around Azure OpenAI. We hold the conversations about architecture, security and costs with the same people who then deliver the work. That keeps our advice honest and our delivery sharp.
We are a Dutch software development company with a cloud practice. Our position is deliberately independent: we are not a reseller, we have no licence quotas, and we have no incentive to sell you more Azure services than you need. If AWS serves you better for a particular workload, we will say so. If a hybrid setup is the smartest choice, we will build that. Our starting point is always your situation, not a vendor's portfolio.
Azure consulting is an umbrella over several more specific engagements. If you want to approach the cloud more broadly or have not yet chosen a provider, you can start with broad digital consulting. If you have only just decided to move to the cloud, you often begin with cloud migration support. And for clients still weighing up a platform choice, see also our parallel page on AWS consulting: the same principles, different tools.
The question "do you do Azure consulting?" breaks down into quite different areas of work. Below are the six that come up most often in our practice, each weighted differently depending on the engagement.
A fitting Azure design for your workload: which services to use, how to organise them across subscriptions and management groups, what network segmentation to apply through virtual networks, and what redundancy approach to take through availability zones or paired regions. Not a reference architecture from a whitepaper, but a design that suits your traffic patterns, team size and growth assumptions.
A structured assessment of an existing Azure environment against the pillars of the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework: reliability, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence and performance efficiency. We examine the Bicep or Terraform code, the RBAC assignments and the runtime metrics in Azure Monitor. At the end you receive a prioritised list with concrete next steps.
Azure bills tend to climb in a way that rarely feels linear to the business. We analyse where the money actually goes (over-provisioned virtual machines, poorly matched managed disk tiers, unused public IPs, missing Reservations or Savings Plans, expensive egress from badly placed resources) and build an approach to make the sensible savings structural.
A well-run Azure tenant differs enormously from a mediocre one at the security foundation. A multi-subscription strategy using management groups and Azure Policy, an identity layer in Entra ID with conditional access and privileged identity management, encryption through Key Vault, segmentation through NSGs and private endpoints, and logging through Log Analytics and Microsoft Defender for Cloud. We work from a clear information security policy, not from a checklist applied afterwards.
From on-premises, from AWS or from a SaaS context. We map the existing landscape, choose the right migration strategy for each workload (rehost, replatform, refactor or replace), and build the migration path without bringing the business to a halt. For the wider migration context, see cloud migration support.
If you already run on Azure but carry a lot of "lift-and-shift" workloads, there's value in modernising: services in containers via AKS or Container Apps, event-driven flows via Event Grid and Service Bus, short transactions on Azure Functions, and an API layer through API Management. Not as an end in itself, but where it makes things simpler, cheaper or more robust than the existing setup.
It depends on where your Azure practice stands and which decision you have on the table. We work out together in the first conversation which format fits; a engagement often starts with a review and grows into an implementation phase.
A structured scan of your existing Azure environment against the five pillars of the Microsoft Well-Architected Framework. We look at RBAC assignments, network topology, cost drivers, observability via Log Analytics and Application Insights, backup strategy and deployment pipelines. At the end you have a findings report and a prioritised list: not an endless document, but concrete improvements your team can start on tomorrow.
A design for a new Azure environment or a redesign of an existing one. An Azure Landing Zone (ALZ) following the Cloud Adoption Framework: management group hierarchy, subscription vending, hub-and-spoke networking, an identity baseline in Entra ID, baseline policies via Azure Policy, and an IaC approach using Bicep or Terraform. At the end you have an environment in which your teams can build safely and predictably.
Strategy without execution remains theory. In this engagement we guide not only the architectural choices but also the delivery: migrating workloads, CI/CD via Azure DevOps Pipelines or GitHub Actions, modernising to AKS, Container Apps or Functions, and observability via Azure Monitor, Application Insights and Log Analytics. We stay on board until it runs in production and your team can continue building on it independently.
Azure now has hundreds of services and the portfolio expands every quarter. Honestly: no partner knows all of them in detail, and neither do we. What we do is deliberately choose the services we work with on a structural basis in client contexts, and where we have in-depth practical knowledge. We learn the rest as needed within the scope of a specific project.
For compute, App Service is often the starting point, with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) where Kubernetes maturity exists in the team, and Container Apps for managed containers with less operational overhead. Azure Functions for event-driven or short-running code, with API Management as the front layer. For data: Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance, Cosmos DB for document and key-value stores that must be distributed globally, and Azure Storage (Blob, Files, Queues, Tables) for object storage. Azure Front Door and CDN for edge distribution.
For security and identity we use Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) for workforce identity and Entra External ID or Azure AD B2C for customer-facing authentication, Key Vault for secrets and certificates, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud for security posture monitoring. For AI workloads, Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Foundry are the two services we work with most: Azure OpenAI for managed access to GPT and embedding models, plus Cognitive Services for vision and speech pipelines. For event architecture we rely on Event Grid, Service Bus and Logic Apps; for observability, Azure Monitor with Log Analytics and Application Insights. For an AI project on Azure, see AI development for our broader practice.
No vague deliverables, but artefacts your cloud team, security officer and business owners can put to use straight away.
Six situations in which clients approach us for Azure work. If you recognise one, we would be glad to talk further. A no-obligation conversation is enough to see whether the chemistry works.
You are starting a new platform and have chosen Azure as its foundation, often because the existing Microsoft stack (Entra ID, Microsoft 365, on-premises Active Directory) makes it a logical choice. You want to get it right first time: a tidy subscription structure, IaC via Bicep or Terraform, an identity baseline in Entra ID, and deployment pipelines. Not a messy proof of concept that later has to be laboriously cleaned up, but a foundation on which the team can be productive straight away.
You are already running on Azure, but the monthly bill has become consistently higher than the business expects. You suspect overcapacity, poorly placed resources (expensive egress!), overpriced managed disk tiers or missing Reservations, but the exact picture is lacking. A Well-Architected review focused on the cost pillar brings that insight to the table and gives you levers to do something about it structurally.
Your sector sets requirements for data residency, logging and incident procedures: GDPR, DORA for financial service providers, NIS2 for essential and important entities, and NEN 7510 for healthcare. Your Azure environment has to demonstrably comply, and you need a partner who can get both the design and the evidence trail in order. See also ISO 27001-compliant software development for the wider security context.
You are experimenting with Azure OpenAI and want to move from prototype to production, with network isolation via private endpoints, content filtering, prompt logging that does not leak outside the EU data boundary, cost monitoring and a fallback strategy for model deprecations. We have walked this path many times and know where the sharp edges are.
The platform is live, customers are enthusiastic, and growth is outpacing the architecture it was designed for. Single-region becomes multi-region, a handful of containers becomes dozens, and the original choices start to constrain you. You need a partner who can take it to the next level of maturity without a major rebuild.
You are on the verge of a platform decision and want no sales pitch. You want an independent analysis that lays out the real trade-offs: cost, talent availability, ecosystem fit (often decisive with Azure, given Microsoft stack integration), compliance evidence and migration flexibility. We also advise where Azure is *not* the smartest choice. See also our parallel page on AWS consulting.
For European customers, data residency is often not a detail but a prerequisite. Azure offers several regions within the EU: West Europe (Amsterdam, the default for many Dutch customers because of latency), North Europe (Dublin), Sweden Central, Germany West Central (Frankfurt) and France Central (Paris). Which region fits depends on your customer base, legal context and service availability. Azure OpenAI, for example, has a more limited regional offering than classic compute, and not every region has availability zones. Since 2024, Microsoft has also been building out the EU Data Boundary: a commitment that customer data and diagnostic data stay within the EU for most services. It is no silver bullet, as data can still leak through misconfigured logging, but it is a serious step for anyone with strict data residency requirements.
For financial service providers, the DORA regulation has applied since 2025: digital operational resilience, exit strategies for critical ICT providers and third-party risk management. For healthcare providers, NEN 7510 remains the framework for information security. Essential and important entities face additional obligations under NIS2, and the GDPR covers all personal data. We configure the Azure design so that it demonstrably supports these frameworks, with an evidence trail that comes structurally from Azure Monitor, Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Purview, rather than being assembled by hand when the auditor arrives.
A specific point of attention is vendor lock-in without an exit plan. Some Azure managed services gradually make an organisation harder to move away from. That is not necessarily a problem, but it is something to decide on consciously. For every significant service choice we put the dependency explicitly on the table: what would an exit look like, and do the benefits outweigh the portability you give up? For us, vendor independence does not mean "don't use managed services", but rather "know what you are signing up for".
An initial conversation to understand where your Azure practice stands, which decision is on the table, and what the constraints are — in terms of budget, compliance, team skills and timing. This is followed by a brief proposal phase in which we agree on the most suitable format: review, architecture design or guided implementation.
We are given read access to your Azure tenant and review IaC repositories, RBAC assignments in Entra ID, network topology, Cost Management reports and monitoring data from Azure Monitor. We also speak with cloud engineers, the security officer and application owners — not to know everything, but to ask the right questions.
In a series of focused sessions we lay out the options: service choices, management group and subscription structure, network blueprint (hub-and-spoke versus virtual WAN), identity and security baseline, and deployment approach. No black-box analysis — your team takes the decisions on board and retains ownership.
We translate the choices into a phased plan with sequencing, team allocation and investment. Concrete enough for the board or finance team, flexible enough to adjust as insight develops.
If you wish, we can stay on board for delivery — as a building partner, programme manager or interim cloud engineer. That way advice and implementation are carried out by the same people, and the engagement only ends once the Azure environment is running in production and your team can continue building on it independently.
What clients usually ask us before we start: honest answers, no sales talk.
An introductory, no-obligation conversation with no sales pressure. We listen to your situation, ask questions and give direction that is genuinely useful to you, even if it turns out that an engagement with us is not the right next step, or that another cloud provider is a better fit.
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