When a nationally recognized online university set out to modernize its cloud ecosystem, leadership knew it wasn’t enough to just migrate systems. Long-term success would require stronger governance, smarter operational processes, and true resiliency across its distributed architecture. To accelerate this transformation, they engaged a ConsultNet Cloud & DevOps strategist to lead critical initiatives spanning API lifecycle management, developer enablement, and enterprise disaster-recovery planning.
RESULTS AT A GLANCE
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- 2200+ repositories evaluated, with a fully vetted API catalog showing 135 complete specs and >100 more in progress
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- 27 new governance artifacts created to standardize API development and improve developer consistency
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- Strategic groundwork underway to support the university’s first formal disaster-recovery program (FY26 launch)
CHALLENGE
The university had invested heavily in cloud-based platforms, yet rapid growth across its learning ecosystem led to fragmented development practices, inconsistent governance, and limited visibility into API assets. Developers were pushing code across thousands of repositories without centralized standards which created long-term risk around maintainability, interoperability, and resiliency. At the same time, the organization lacked a formal disaster-recovery roadmap, making system outages a growing concern in an online-only business model.
SOLUTION
Our consultant joined the enterprise architecture team as the organization’s dedicated API domain leader responsible for standardization, modernization, and cross-functional alignment between architecture, engineering, and DevOps teams. Key tools included Jira, GitHub, LeanIX, and MS Teams for documentation, collaboration, and process enforcement.
PHASE 1: API GOVERNANCE & DEVELOPER ENABLEMENT
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- Inventoried 2,200+ repositories to create the first-ever enterprise API catalog
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- Identified 135 fully documented API specifications, with another 100+ actively tracked for formalization
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- Authored 27 technical standards and best-practice artifacts used by development teams to drive consistency and accelerate delivery
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- Established a knowledge-sharing framework to increase API reuse, ownership clarity, and cross-team alignment
PHASE 2: DISASTER-RECOVERY READINESS (IN FLIGHT FOR FY26)
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- Partnering with enterprise-architecture and cloud-infrastructure teams to lay the foundation for the university’s first formal disaster-recovery program
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- Leading interviews, documentation reviews, and readiness assessments across business-critical systems
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- Developing strategic guidance now driving internal discussions on multi-regional failover, response responsibilities, and long-term resiliency planning
WHY THIS PROJECT STANDS OUT
The credit union now has a unified view of its systems, enabling faster and more confident decision-making. Consistent data definitions improve collaboration, reduce duplicate work, and strengthen data literacy across teams. Governance policies are directly tied to business outcomes, ensuring data supports both compliance and growth.
“This role requires thinking like a CTO: researching emerging technologies, understanding their fit across the architecture, and introducing the right improvements at the right time. The reward is helping the organization build cloud resilience that lasts.”
-Tom Klemzak, Enterprise Architect or Cloud & DevOps Strategist
A HIGH-PERFORMANCE DEVOPS CULTURE
The project operates within a highly collaborative architecture organization composed of former consulting leaders from Deloitte, EY, and Accenture. Daily interaction across Enterprise Architecture, Solution Architecture, Salesforce, and Infrastructure Engineering allows for rapid ideation and alignment. Ideas are vetted through an Architecture Review Board, ensuring every improvement is endorsed across the cloud operating model.
