Position Overview
We are looking for a hands-on Azure Infrastructure & Migration Engineer to support the migration of a 20-server QA environment from a VMware-based hosting environment to Microsoft Azure.
The initial project will focus on building and configuring the QA environment in Azure and running a side-by-side performance comparison against the existing environment. The project is expected to expand into a full production migration.
The Azure infrastructure deployment scripts have already been developed and validated, so the focus will be on hands-on implementation, guest OS and application configuration, data migration, infrastructure optimization, and performance testing.
Key Responsibilities
- Build and configure the QA environment in Microsoft Azure using the existing Bicep and PowerShell infrastructure-as-code pipeline.
- Support the migration of approximately 20 servers from the existing VMware/hosted environment to Azure.
- Configure and manage Windows Server environments and application layers.
- Support workloads including SQL Server, IIS, Couchbase, Solr, Tomcat/Lucee, and application services.
- Execute data migration activities using the appropriate migration and backup/restore approaches.
- Configure and validate Azure storage, networking, compute, and related infrastructure services.
- Support Azure VM sizing based on actual workload performance and telemetry.
- Configure and optimize storage performance, including disk tiers, IOPS, and volume configuration.
- Maintain the existing SQL Server storage layout and drive-letter configuration across five SQL Server VMs.
- Configure and optimize tempdb using local NVMe where applicable.
- Support Disaster Recovery, backup, recovery, and infrastructure resilience activities.
- Assist with the development and execution of QA and performance testing.
- Compare Azure performance against the existing hosted environment and help identify infrastructure bottlenecks.
- Configure and validate monitoring, including New Relic, to support an apples-to-apples performance comparison.
- Troubleshoot infrastructure, OS, networking, storage, and application-layer issues during migration and testing.
- Work within the existing infrastructure-as-code process and avoid manual configuration drift.
- Document configurations, migration procedures, testing results, and operational processes.
Required Experience
- 6+ years of hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
- Strong experience administering Windows Server environments.
- Hands-on experience with Azure Infrastructure as Code, particularly Bicep and/or ARM templates.
- Experience with Azure VM deployment, sizing, networking, storage, and performance optimization.
- Strong SQL Server infrastructure administration experience, particularly storage configuration and I/O optimization.
- Experience managing SQL Server VM storage layouts, including drive configuration and tempdb optimization.
- Experience with Azure migration projects involving existing VMware or hosted environments.
- Understanding of Azure VM SKUs, disk tiers, IOPS, throughput, and workload sizing.
- Experience with Azure Backup, Disaster Recovery, or recovery planning.
- Ability to troubleshoot infrastructure and application-layer issues in a hands-on capacity.
- Experience working with performance testing and infrastructure benchmarking.
Technology Environment
- Microsoft Azure
- Bicep / ARM
- PowerShell
- Windows Server 2022
- SQL Server 2022
- IIS
- Couchbase
- Solr
- Tomcat / Lucee
- Azure Virtual Machines
- Azure Storage / Premium SSD v2
- Azure Networking
- Azure Application Gateway / WAF
- Azure Migrate
- Azure Backup / Disaster Recovery
- New Relic
Nice to Have
- VMware / vSphere experience.
- Experience migrating workloads from VMware to Azure.
- Experience with Azure Site Recovery.
- Experience with Azure Migrate.
- Experience with performance testing and capacity planning.
- Experience with SQL Server IOPS optimization.
- Experience with Couchbase or Solr migrations.
- Experience with Azure Application Gateway and WAF.
- Azure Administrator or Azure Infrastructure certifications.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is a hands-on Azure infrastructure professional, rather than someone focused exclusively on Azure portal administration. They should be comfortable working directly with infrastructure-as-code, Windows servers, SQL Server storage, Azure VM sizing, migration activities, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.
Experience with Bicep/ARM, SQL Server storage and I/O, and Azure migration architecture will be particularly important for this project. The client specifically wants someone who can work within the existing scripted deployment approach rather than manually configuring resources and creating infrastructure drift.