Azure cloud & infrastructure · Brooklyn, NY

I build the network, then break it to find out why.

IT professional working across Azure networking, compute, storage and identity. Three infrastructure builds documented end to end — including the failures and what fixed them.

View Resume See the builds LinkedIn GitHub

Segmented network build: peered virtual networks, tiered subnets, load balancer, Bastion and NAT Gateway.

About

I came into IT through an associate degree in IT support, then a B.S. in Information Technology while working through certifications on my own time. Most of what I know about Azure I learned by building things, watching them fail, and working out why.

That's not a figure of speech. On one build, an App Service deployment kept failing with nothing useful in the error output. I went through PowerShell debug logs until I found it was hitting a regional tier quota — then fixed it and wrote it down. The failures are in the repositories alongside the working configurations, because that's the part that actually taught me something.

Alongside the lab work, I've run real client infrastructure: provisioning Azure VMs for a live workload, setting up snapshots and a recovery VM, hosting a site on App Service, and handling domains, DNS and business email — while being the only technical person my client had to call.

Currently: Preparing for AZ-104,
Azure Administrator
Looking for: Cloud support, systems administration, junior cloud engineering
Based in: Brooklyn, New York
Certified: AZ-900 · AWS CCP
A+ · Network+ · Security+

Infrastructure builds

Three Azure environments built from scratch and documented on GitHub — configurations, troubleshooting steps, and what went wrong along the way.

Segmented network infrastructure

Two peered virtual networks with private Ubuntu VMs across separate web, API and database subnets, subnet-level NSGs, Azure Bastion for secure access, a Standard public Load Balancer, Private DNS and NAT Gateway.

Diagnosed NSG priority conflicts, user-defined route misconfiguration and VNet peering failures using Network Watcher, curl and nc — tracing where traffic was actually being dropped rather than guessing.

VNet peering
NSGs
UDRs
Bastion
Load Balancer
Private DNS
NAT Gateway
Network Watcher

View repository

Multi-OS compute infrastructure

Ubuntu Linux and Windows Server virtual machines running Nginx and IIS, with managed disks, snapshots and Azure Monitor alerting for health and availability.

Configured persistent Linux storage with UUID and fstab so volumes remount correctly across reboots, and tested snapshot recovery rather than assuming it would work.

Virtual Machines
Managed disks
Snapshots
Azure Monitor
Nginx
IIS
Windows Server
Ubuntu

View repository

Storage and PowerShell automation

Blob Storage and Azure Files configured with enforced TLS, secure transfer and lifecycle management policies, plus PowerShell automation that generates short-lived user delegation SAS tokens for time-limited access.

Traced an App Service deployment failure through debug output and deployment logs to a regional F1 tier quota limit, then resolved it — the troubleshooting is documented in the repository.

Blob Storage
Azure Files
SAS tokens
TLS enforcement
Lifecycle policies
Azure PowerShell
App Service

View repository

Technical skills

What I've actually configured, scripted or troubleshot — not a keyword list.

Azure

Virtual Machines
VNets, subnets, peering
NSGs and route tables
Load Balancer, Bastion
Private DNS, NAT Gateway
Network Watcher
Blob Storage, Azure Files
Managed disks, snapshots
App Service
Entra ID, SAS tokens
Azure Monitor

Systems & scripting

Windows Server
Windows 10 / 11 support
Ubuntu Linux
PowerShell automation
Azure CLI
Bash
Nginx, IIS
MariaDB
Git and GitHub

Networking

TCP/IP
DNS and DHCP
CIDR and subnetting
Routing
Ports and protocols
Connectivity troubleshooting

Support

Client-facing technical support
DNS records and nameservers
Domain transfers
Business email administration
Web hosting
Technical documentation

Experience

2024 — Present

Freelance IT & Cloud Support Specialist

Self-employed · Brooklyn, NY

Provisioned and configured an Azure Windows virtual machine for a client business workload, sizing compute and storage against their actual performance and capacity needs.
Built a data protection setup using VM snapshots and a secondary virtual machine for recovery.
Deployed and hosted a client website on Azure App Service, keeping it publicly available and troubleshooting availability issues as they came up.
Managed web hosting, domain transfers, DNS records, nameservers and business email administration — including account access and permissions.
Worked directly with clients to gather requirements, resolve technical and account issues, and explain what was happening in language that made sense to them.
Set up and managed Google Ads campaigns, including account configuration and ongoing optimisation.

Credentials

Certifications

Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)Microsoft
Azure Administrator (AZ-104)In progress
AWS Certified Cloud PractitionerAWS
CompTIA Security+CompTIA
CompTIA Network+CompTIA
CompTIA A+CompTIA
ITIL FoundationITIL

Education

B.S. Information Technology

Western Governors University · 2026

A.A.S. Computer Information Systems
(IT Support)

Oakland Community College · 2024

Get in touch

I'm looking for roles in cloud support, infrastructure support, systems administration and junior cloud engineering — in New York or remote.

ma@muhammadafzaal.com LinkedIn GitHub