Consulting Services
The Platform Foundation Review
A fixed-scope, 4-week architecture engagement for teams running on Azure — and the MSPs who support them. You walk away knowing exactly what risks your platform carries, what it will cost you at scale, and how to fix it — with the code to do so.
Why This Exists
Diagnostic depth meets pattern recognition.
PAA is automated and comprehensive — it scans your entire Azure environment against 800+ security, reliability, and cost checks derived from Microsoft's Well-Architected Framework. It surfaces what's there.
But knowing what's there is only half the answer. You need someone who has seen these patterns across thousands of architectures — who knows which findings are urgent, which are noise, and what your platform needs to look like at 10x your current load.
That's the engagement. PAA provides the depth. Ten years at Microsoft provides the judgement. Together they deliver something neither a tool nor a generic consultant can match.
Crimson Owl Technologies
Built on ten years at Microsoft
10
Years at Microsoft
1,000+
Architectures reviewed
800+
Automated checks via PAA
4
Weeks to complete clarity
Who It's For
Built for teams that have to prove it
If any of these sounds familiar, PAA was built for you.
Regulation
A NIS2 or DORA review is coming
Know where your Azure estate stands against the controls you'll be asked about, before the review does it for you.
Audit
A finding you need to close
See what is actually configured, what to fix first, and the design and Terraform or Bicep to fix it.
MSP
Every client tenant, without more architects
Automated Azure assessments per client, so your team reviews findings instead of collecting them.
Bandwidth
Your architects are stretched
Designs and documents grounded in what you run, written against your own principles, ready for your team to review.
The Engagement
4 weeks. Fixed scope. No surprises.
Every engagement follows the same structure. You know what happens each week, what you'll receive at the end, and what it costs before we start.
Environment Inventory
PAA connects to your Azure environment via read-only access and runs a full scan across security, reliability, cost, operational excellence, and performance. 800+ automated checks surface the complete picture of your current state.
Findings Review
We work through the findings together. Not every finding is equal — some are urgent, some are noise, some are architectural decisions you made deliberately. This session separates the critical from the cosmetic and gives each risk a business impact, not just a severity score.
Capacity Planning
Where does your platform break? We model your architecture against 10x your current load and identify the specific bottlenecks — database connection limits, compute ceiling, storage throughput, network topology — that will stop your growth before you see them coming.
Remediation Roadmap
A prioritised plan your engineering team can act on immediately. Critical findings come with ready-to-deploy Terraform and Bicep code generated by PAA. The roadmap is structured by impact and effort — so you fix what matters most first.
What You Walk Away With
Everything documented. Nothing left to memory.
Every deliverable is structured so your team can act on it without us in the room. The work doesn't live in a slide deck — it lives in your GitHub.
- PAA Assessment Report — Full findings across all WAF pillars, severity-rated, compliance-mapped, with evidence.
- Architecture Diagram — Current state and target state diagrams your team and your auditor can read.
- Prioritised Risk Register — Every finding with business impact, effort estimate, and recommended owner.
- Capacity Planning Document — Your platform modelled against 10x load — where it holds, where it breaks.
- Remediation Roadmap — A sprint-ready backlog with IaC starter code for critical findings.
- GitHub Sync (optional) — All findings and the roadmap synced to your repository via PAA.
Pricing
Fixed price. Excl. VAT. No hourly surprises.
30 minutes. No commitment. We'll confirm fit before anything is signed.
After the Engagement
The work doesn't stop at week 4.
Your architecture changes every sprint. New services, new dependencies, new risks. After the Platform Foundation Review, PAA stays on — continuously monitoring your environment against the same standards we used in the engagement.
Clients who continue with a PAA subscription get Pro tier included for the first month, with direct access to our team for the first 30 days post-engagement.
Continuous WAF monitoring
800+ checks running against your live environment
New findings as you ship
Every new resource assessed against the same standards
WAF score tracking over time
Prove architectural improvement to your board and auditors
Common Questions
Do we need to prepare anything before the engagement starts?
No. Setup takes about 20 minutes — you grant PAA read-only access to your Azure subscriptions via Entra ID, and we're ready to scan. It changes nothing in your environment unless you turn on an optional integration, such as Defender for Cloud push.
Is €4,500 worth it if we already have architects?
The review is built to make your team faster, not to replace it: PAA does the collection and the first pass, I add the judgement on what matters and what to fix first. Your architects get a prioritised roadmap instead of a blank page.
What if we're not on Azure?
The Platform Foundation Review is Azure-native. PAA is currently Azure-focused — reach out to discuss if you're building on a different cloud.
Is this a one-time engagement or ongoing?
The Platform Foundation Review is a one-time fixed engagement. Most clients continue with a PAA subscription afterwards for continuous monitoring. There's no obligation to do so.
Know what your platform carries before your users find out.
30-minute discovery call. We confirm fit, answer your questions, and agree a start date. No commitment until you're ready.
Typically 2–3 week lead time from discovery call to engagement start.
