ArchitectNow

02/25/2026

Something Alex kept coming back to during our WAF session last week:

AI is not this magic thing sitting off to the side that you don't know how to manage.

Every WAF pillar has AI implications that most teams aren't thinking about yet:

Reliability: What's your fallback when OpenAI rate limits hit? When a region goes down? When a retrained model starts giving different answers?

Security: Prompt injection is real. Users are typing English into your app and controlling its behavior. Content filtering isn't optional.

Cost: Token billing is a different world. Output tokens cost more than input. Every conversation passes the full history back to the model. A long system prompt adds up on every request.

Performance: Can you cache AI responses? Yes, with semantic caching. But the 5% difference in prompt similarity could change the whole answer.

Operations: Version your prompts. A/B test them. Watch for quality drift over time.

If you're adding AI to your Azure environment and not running it through the WAF pillars, you're taking on debt you'll have to deal with later.

02/24/2026

ArchitectNow is proud to announce that our President, Kevin Grossnicklaus has been appointed to the TechSTL Board of Directors.

TechSTL just announced a big strategic shift. New North Star focused on accelerating access to customers and capital for mid-market tech companies in the St. Louis region. The new board is CEO-majority, operators who are actively building companies here.

We've been building software for local St. Louis companies for over a decade, and have been proud to serve the tech community of St Louis through organizing and sponsoring conferences, local montly meet ups, and providing technical education for local universities and organizations.

Kevin joining the board means we have a seat at the table to help shape what TechSTL does for companies like ours and the ones we work with every day.

Every board member has committed as a presenting sponsor for the 4th Annual STL TechWeek, April 13-17, 2026. We'll be there and would love to see anyone who is local to STL, that come come out and attend.

Congrats to Emily Hemingway and the TechSTL team, we are very excited for the future of Tech in St. Louis

Check out the press release from

02/20/2026

Yesterday, Alex went live on the Azure Well-Architected Framework.

If you missed it, here's the recording:
https://ow.ly/Llhh50YitUO

5 things that stuck from our Azure WAF webinar yesterday.

1. "The gap between POC and production is a spectrum, not a binary." It's not two states. The WAF helps you figure out where your workload should sit.

2. Architecture is a business problem. Internal app vs. external. 10 users vs. 10 million. Regulated or not. Those decisions change your whole architecture.

3. AI isn't a separate thing you bolt on. It adds new failure modes, new attack surfaces, new cost models to every pillar. Treat your prompts like code.

4. Just look at your bill. Probably Alex's most practical advice all day. Give your devs read access to costs. Use tags. Review it monthly. You'll find waste fast.

5. Your app service is still billing you. Turning it off doesn't stop the charges. You have to delete the plan. Sounds small but it adds up.

Reach out to us if you would like to do a Azure Assessment

ArchitectNow specializes in AI-driven and cloud-focused technology solutions, helping enterprises thrive in the modern digital landscape.

02/20/2026

5 things that stuck from our Azure WAF webinar yesterday.

1. "The gap between POC and production is a spectrum, not a binary." It's not two states. The WAF helps you figure out where your workload should sit.

2. Architecture is a business problem. Internal app vs. external. 10 users vs. 10 million. Regulated or not. Those decisions change your whole architecture.

3. AI isn't a separate thing you bolt on. It adds new failure modes, new attack surfaces, new cost models to every pillar. Treat your prompts like code.

4. Just look at your bill. Probably Alex's most practical advice all day. Give your devs read access to costs. Use tags. Review it monthly. You'll find waste fast.

5. Your app service is still billing you. Turning it off doesn't stop the charges. You have to delete the plan. Sounds small but it adds up.

Recording is available here:
https://ow.ly/Llhh50YitUO

ArchitectNow specializes in AI-driven and cloud-focused technology solutions, helping enterprises thrive in the modern digital landscape.

02/19/2026

We're going live in 90 minutes.

Alex Will is breaking down the Azure Well-Architected Framework, the same framework Microsoft uses to evaluate whether cloud environments are built to last.

What you'll walk away with:
→ A practical approach to applying the 5 pillars
→ Common pitfalls that derail Azure projects
→ How to move from proof-of-concept to production

12:00 PM CT. Free. Link to join in comments below:
https://ow.ly/jwTe50YaCRY

02/18/2026

Tomorrow, Alex Will is going live with a session that could change how you think about your Azure environment.

Most organizations treat cloud architecture like an afterthought. Build fast, optimize later.

The problem? "Later" usually means "after it's already broken."

The Azure Well-Architected Framework flips that. It gives you a structured way to evaluate and improve your cloud workloads across 5 pillars — before problems become expensive.

In this session, you'll learn:
✓ How to apply the framework to your current Azure environment
✓ Where most teams go wrong with cloud adoption
✓ How to balance speed with long-term scalability

Tomorrow, February 19th at 12 PM CT.

Not another high-level overview. Practical application from someone who's done this for dozens of organizations.

Register now: https://ow.ly/FZCV50YaCHJ

— you'll get the recording even if you can't attend live.

02/16/2026

Meet Alex Will.

The CTO here at ArchitectNow. Microsoft Azure & AI MVP. And the person who's going to show you how to stop wasting money on Azure.

Alex has spent the last decade helping organizations move from "we have Azure" to "we're actually getting ROI from Azure."

The difference? Architecture.

Not just throwing services together. Building systems that are reliable, secure, cost-efficient, operationally sound, and performant.

That's what the Azure Well-Architected Framework is designed to do. And that's what Alex is covering this Thursday.

If you've ever:
• Wondered why your Azure bill keeps climbing
• Struggled to move a project from pilot to production
• Felt like your cloud strategy is more reactive than strategic

This session is built for you.
Thursday, February 19th at 12 PM CT. Free. Live.
Link to register here: https://ow.ly/nqil50YaCAJ

02/12/2026

Your Azure environment is costing more than it should.

Here's why:
Most teams optimize for speed when they're building. Get it working. Ship it. Move on.
But "working" and "well-architected" are two different things.

A working Azure solution might:
• Run up costs because resources aren't right-sized
• Create security gaps because governance was an afterthought
• Break under load because reliability wasn't designed in
• Slow down your team because operations weren't considered

A well-architected solution handles all of that from the start.

The difference? A framework.

Microsoft's Well-Architected Framework gives you 5 pillars to evaluate and improve any Azure workload:

1. Reliability — Does it recover from failures?
2. Security — Is it protected by design?
3. Cost Optimization — Are you paying for what you actually need?
4. Operational Excellence — Can your team run it efficiently?
5. Performance Efficiency — Does it scale when demand spikes?

Next Thursday, Alex Will is walking through how to apply this framework in practice.
If your Azure costs keep climbing or your cloud projects keep stalling — this one's for you.

Register Now: https://ow.ly/pZFo50YaCAh

02/09/2026

46% of Azure projects never make it past proof-of-concept.
Not because the technology failed. Because there was no framework to scale it.

We've seen teams pour months into Azure solutions that stall the moment they try to move from pilot to production. The code works. The demos impress. But when it's time to scale? Everything breaks down.

The problem isn't Azure. It's architecture.

On February 19th, our CTO Alex Will is hosting a live session on the Azure Well-Architected Framework, the same framework Microsoft uses to evaluate whether cloud environments are built to last.

You'll learn:
→ How to apply the 5 pillars (Reliability, Security, Cost Optimization, Operational Excellence, Performance) to your Azure environment
→ How to avoid the pitfalls that derail early cloud projects
→ How to move from proof-of-concept to production without rebuilding everything

Alex is a Microsoft Azure & AI MVP who's helped dozens of organizations get this right. This isn't theory, it's the playbook.

Free. Live. 1 hour.

Register Today: https://ow.ly/GgEB50YawC9

01/20/2026

What if your AI coding assistant followed your team's rules?
Not suggestions. Actual encoded standards.

That's what constitutional principles do in spec-driven development—and it's a game changer.

Free webinar this Thursday:
→ Encode architectural constraints AI agents respect
→ Create executable specs as your source of truth
→ Team standards encoded as constitutional principles

📅 Jan 22 | 12 PM CT | Free
Register Today to Join → https://ow.ly/lFBL50Y0jzp

01/16/2026

Your AI coding assistant writes code fast. But fast ≠ production-ready.

Join us for a free webinar on spec-driven development—the framework for getting consistent, shippable code from GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, and more.

What you'll learn:
→ Why "vibe coding" leads to endless debugging
→ How to create specs AI agents actually follow
→ The workflow that turns chaos into clean code

January 22nd | 12 PM CT
Register Here:
https://ow.ly/7jxg50XXFUO