dcasati — Diego Casati: Principal Solution Engineer, Azure Global Black Belt
dcasati [-application-modernization | -cloud-native | -platform-engineering]
[-kubernetes | -containers | -serverless]
[-devops | -gitops | -infrastructure-as-code]
[-cxo-advisory | -pre-sales | -thought-leadership]
The
dcasati utility is a Principal Solution Engineer on Microsoft's
Azure Global Black Belt team with 20 years in cloud and software
engineering, specializing in Kubernetes, platform engineering, and
cloud-native architectures for high-performance workloads.
He helps organizations migrate and modernize legacy workloads onto
Azure-native platforms including AKS, Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO),
Azure Container Apps (ACA), App Service, and Azure Functions. He is
equally comfortable whiteboarding a microservices architecture with a
CTO and writing the Helm chart that deploys it.
Prior to his current role, he spent over a decade in the Telco and IT
industries, accumulating experience across Network Engineering, Systems
Engineering, Security, OpenStack private cloud, and enterprise storage
before joining Microsoft in 2017.
He is a strong proponent of open source, GitOps, and the philosophy
that infrastructure should be version-controlled, reviewed, and
reproducible. He has a bad habit of turning every customer conversation
into a Kubernetes architecture diagram.
He is the co-creator of Project Nighthawk, a multi-agent research
system built inside VS Code with GitHub Copilot that produces
fact-checked, source-cited technical reports for field engineering.
He writes regularly at
azureglobalblackbelts.com and the Microsoft
DevBlogs "
All Things Azure" publication, covering topics from NVIDIA
Dynamo disaggregated inference on AKS to continuous profiling with
Pyroscope, ARO internals, and agentic platform engineering.
He authored key sections of the official
AKS Labs, including the
Platform Engineering with Kubernetes (CAPZ + ASO + ArgoCD) and
Migration workshops, and has presented these live on Microsoft
Reactor's YouTube channel.
Outside of work, he enjoys camping, electronics tinkering, and
off-grid radio in the Canadian Rockies. He maintains a guide on
building portable Winlink stations for off-grid data communications
using ham radio.
The following options are supported:
-application-modernization
Engages legacy-to-cloud-native migration mode. Outputs modernization
roadmaps, reference architectures, and solution accelerators.
Warns loudly when lift-and-shift is proposed instead of re-architect.
-kubernetes
Deploys opinions about cluster topology, workload identity, autoscaling
strategies, and why your namespace naming convention matters.
-containers
Emits Dockerfiles, Helm charts, and strong feelings about image
scanning and supply chain security.
-serverless
Activates Azure Functions and ACA expertise. Side effect: will
suggest event-driven architecture for problems that may not need it.
-gitops
Enables GitOps mode using Flux or ArgoCD. Will not approve any
deployment that cannot be expressed as a Git commit.
-cxo-advisory
Switches to executive engagement mode. Translates technical
architecture decisions into business outcomes, cost savings, and
competitive positioning vs AWS and GCP.
-thought-leadership
Produces blog posts, conference talks, reference architectures, and
demos. May result in unsolicited opinions posted to the internet.
Returns 0 (success) on most customer engagements.
Returns 1 when asked to recommend a non-Azure hyperscaler.
Returns EAGAIN when "just one more slide deck" is requested.
CLOUD Preferred value: Azure. Tolerates AWS and GCP for competitive analysis.
SHELL bash. Obviously.
EDITOR vim. This is not up for debate.
TIMEZONE America/Edmonton. Meetings before 08:00 local are considered a bug.
LANG pt_BR (native), en_CA (full professional), fr_CA (limited working).
Spin up a new application modernization engagement:
dcasati -application-modernization -kubernetes -cxo-advisory
Run a competitive displacement against AWS EKS:
dcasati -kubernetes -cxo-advisory --exceed-expectations
Deliver a technical talk on GitOps at a customer briefing:
dcasati -gitops -thought-leadership --coffee required
"Why not just use managed VMs?"
This message indicates the customer has not yet seen the AKS cost
model. Schedule an architecture design session immediately.
"Can we do this in 2 weeks?"
Non-fatal warning. Roadmap will be adjusted. Expectations will be
managed. Coffee consumption will increase.
"We're evaluating GCP."
Informational. Initiates competitive analysis subroutine. Not fatal.
"NVIDIA Dynamo on AKS: Disaggregated LLM Inference with H100 GPUs"
"Continuous Profiling on AKS with Pyroscope, Blob Storage, and Managed Grafana"
"Agentic Platform Engineering with GitHub Copilot"
"Project Nighthawk: A Research Agent Built for Field Engineering"
"When Infrastructure Scales But Understanding Doesn't"
"The Human Scale Problem in Platform Engineering"
"Tools of the Trade" (series)
"ARO Storage Accounts: Under the Hood"
"Understanding ICMP Traffic on AKS"
"Custom Monitoring with Telegraf"
"AKS Labs: Observability with Managed Prometheus and Managed Grafana"
"AKS Labs: Istio Service Mesh"
Project Nighthawk
A multi-agent research system built inside VS Code with GitHub Copilot.
Six-agent pipeline that produces fact-checked, source-cited technical
reports from live source code and official documentation. Built for
field engineering depth on AKS and ARO.
AKS Labs — Platform Engineering
AKS Labs — Migration
Authored the Migration section of the official
AKS Labs.
Guide to building portable
Winlink stations for off-grid data
communications using ham radio (Baofeng UV-5R, Yaesu FT-818nd,
DigiRig, Vara FM/HF, and RadioMail).
Complies with the Azure Well-Architected Framework, CNCF project
maturity guidelines, and the Twelve-Factor App methodology.
Loosely compliant with work-life balance RFCs.
Too many to list here.
Known issue: will refactor your CI/CD pipeline even when not asked.
Occasionally over-engineers solutions for simple problems.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
Expert — Azure Architecture Center
VMware Certified Sales Professional (VSP)
VMware Technical Solutions Professional (VTSP)
Microsoft — Principal Cloud Native Computing Technical Specialist (2021–present)
Azure Global Black Belt. Application modernization leadership for
Fortune 500 customers across North America. Competitive wins against
AWS EKS and GCP GKE in regulated industries.
Microsoft — Cloud Solution Architect (2019–2021)
Guided enterprise customers through Azure adoption: infrastructure
migration, cloud-native development, HA/DR architectures for
financial services and public sector.
Microsoft — Senior Software Engineer (2017–2019)
Developed commercially available cloud solutions on Azure.
Built demos, code samples, and architecture guides for developer events.
CNCF — Chapter Organizer, Cloud Native Calgary (2023–2024)
Organized the Cloud Native Calgary community group chapter.
Dell EMC — Principal ScaleIO Enterprise Advocate (2017)
Deep SME for ScaleIO elastic converged storage. Assisted with
strategic multi-million PoC demos and L3 support for key accounts.
Dell EMC — Principal CSE, VxRack Neutrino (2015–2017)
Corporate Systems Engineer for VxRack Neutrino, a turnkey OpenStack
private cloud solution powered by Docker, Ansible, and ScaleIO.
Dell EMC — Sr. Systems Integration Engineer (2013–2015)
Technical consultation for EMC's performance monitoring products.
Large-scale HA/DR solution design and customer delivery.
Manwin Canada — Web Security Specialist (2012–2013)
Malware analysis, penetration testing, forensic analysis on Linux
servers, and security hardening procedures.
ECI Telecom — Solutions Engineer (2008–2012)
Primary solutions engineer for Global Village Telecom (Vivendi).
Traffic engineering with MPLS, QoS, IPTV, and Video on Demand.
Nortel Networks — Network Engineer (2006–2008)
Network management, IT security audits, and infrastructure compliance.
Inatel — Information Security Consultant (2005–2006)
Security policies, disaster recovery planning, and vulnerability assessment.
Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicações (Inatel), Brazil
Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 2001–2006.
• Excellence@EMC — Outstanding Team Work and NHC Support
• Excellence@EMC — Excellent Teamwork and Neutrino DA Support
• Excellence@EMC — Makes Working with Engineering a Delight
• Excellence@EMC — Successful Implementation of SRM3
• Excellence@EMC — Passion and Excellence
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