Expert Tech Pilot provides software architecture consulting and systems integration services to businesses throughout Northeast Ohio, including Cleveland, Akron, Macedonia, Solon, Independence, and surrounding communities. The work ranges from architecture assessments and application/API integration to enterprise data flows and the technical planning that connects them. Each engagement ends with a design or a working integration your team can understand, operate, and extend.
What this service covers
Enterprise architecture work is often described in abstractions. The useful version is concrete: which systems exist, what each one owns, how data moves, where the dependencies are brittle, and what decision would make the next two years easier. That is the work I do.
- Architecture assessment. A current-state review of applications, integrations, data stores, infrastructure, and the operating model around them.
- Application and API integration. Designing and building the contracts, services, and processing that connect systems owned by different teams, vendors, or platforms.
- Enterprise data flows. Ownership, validation, transformation, timing, and failure handling for data that crosses system boundaries.
- Dependency and technical-risk review. Unsupported components, single points of failure, undocumented behavior, vendor constraints, and upgrade blockers.
- Technical discovery and implementation planning. Turning a broad business goal into a sequenced, technically credible plan with explicit assumptions.
- Hands-on delivery. When the right answer includes building the integration or proving the design, I can do that rather than leave the plan on paper.
When architecture becomes the constraint
Architecture problems usually surface as coordination problems. A change that should take a day takes a month because three teams have to agree on a data definition. A new report requires copying data out of four systems. An integration fails silently and is discovered by a customer. The application code may be fine; the boundaries are not.
Common triggers for an architecture review include a merger or acquisition, a new product line, a major vendor replacement, a migration to Azure, a security or audit finding, a stalled integration project, or simply the realization that the person who understood how everything connected has left.
The review does not need to start with a large consulting program. A focused assessment of one business capability — order-to-cash, case management, production reporting, customer onboarding — often reveals the structural problem without boiling the ocean.
Architecture assessment
I review the current state from the outside in and the inside out. The outside view starts with the business capability and the people who depend on it. The inside view starts with the code, the data model, the deployment process, and the integrations that make it work. The gap between those two views is usually where the useful findings are.
The assessment covers:
- System inventory and ownership. What each application does, who owns it, who uses it, and what happens when it is unavailable.
- Integration map. How data moves today, including scheduled jobs, file drops, direct database reads, APIs, and manual re-entry that has become a de facto interface.
- Data ownership. Which system is the source of truth for each important entity, and where copies diverge.
- Platform and dependency risk. Runtime versions, unsupported libraries, vendor lock-in, end-of-life components, and deployment constraints.
- Operational reality. Monitoring, backup and recovery, access management, change control, and the on-call path.
The output is a written assessment with a current-state diagram, a prioritized set of findings, and options. It is designed to be read by both technical and business leaders, because architecture decisions that exclude either group tend not to survive.
Application and API integration
Integration is where architecture becomes visible to the business. A well-designed integration has an explicit contract, a clear owner, observable failures, and a support path. A poorly designed one works until it doesn't, then requires a person to reconstruct what happened from log files.
I design and build integrations between .NET applications, internal databases, third-party APIs, document and records systems, identity providers, and reporting tools. The work includes API contracts, authentication and authorization, data mapping, retry and idempotency, error queues, and the logging needed to resolve a failed transaction.
Where the existing integration is a scheduled file exchange or a direct database read, I assess whether it should stay that way. Sometimes the simple approach is correct. Sometimes it is the source of every reconciliation problem the business has. The recommendation should follow the volume, the change frequency, the failure tolerance, and the number of consumers — not a preference for a particular pattern.
SQL Server and enterprise data flows
Data is usually the real integration surface. SQL Server appears in many enterprise portfolios as both the system of record and the place where reporting, exports, and workarounds accumulate. That makes it central to architecture work and a common source of hidden coupling.
I review schema design, query performance, indexing, data access patterns, and the downstream consumers that read production tables directly. The goal is not to force every consumer through an API; it is to make ownership and access explicit, reduce unnecessary load, and ensure that a change to one system does not silently break another.
For data that crosses systems, the design has to answer practical questions: How fresh does it need to be? What happens when a record is corrected or deleted? Which system wins a conflict? How are failed records surfaced to someone who can fix them? Those answers belong in the design, not in an operations runbook written after the first incident.
Legacy and third-party dependencies
Enterprise architecture is largely a study of dependencies. Some are technical: an unsupported framework, a database version, a library with a known vulnerability. Some are organizational: a vendor who controls the roadmap, a team that owns a critical service but has no capacity, a contract that limits export or integration options.
I map the dependencies that constrain the business and separate the ones that can be changed from the ones that must be designed around. That distinction is what makes a plan realistic. A recommendation to “replace the ERP” is not an architecture recommendation until it accounts for the data migration, the integration surface, the business disruption, and the vendor contract.
Technical discovery and implementation planning
A plan is only useful if it reflects what is actually there. Technical discovery is the disciplined version of “figuring it out”: reviewing code and configuration, interviewing the people who operate the system, verifying assumptions, and identifying the unknowns that could change the estimate.
The output of discovery is an implementation plan with a clear sequence, dependencies, decision points, risks, and acceptance criteria. It should state what is known, what is assumed, and what must be tested before the next commitment. That structure lets a business approve a first phase without pretending the entire program is predictable.
I can also facilitate the architecture decision itself. When there are two credible options, the useful deliverable is not a longer document; it is a clear statement of the trade-offs, the conditions under which each option is right, and a recommendation with the reasoning exposed.
Performance, reliability, maintainability, and scalability
These qualities are often listed as if they were independent goals. In practice they trade against each other. A design optimized for scalability may be harder to operate for a small team. A design optimized for simplicity may hit a ceiling sooner. The architect's job is to make the trade explicit and choose the one that fits the business horizon.
Performance work starts with measurement: where time is spent, which calls are synchronous, which queries scan, and what the user actually experiences. Reliability work starts with failure modes: what happens when a dependency is slow, a job overlaps, a message is delivered twice, or a deployment fails halfway. Maintainability work starts with comprehension: can a new developer trace a request, find the configuration, and make a change without fear? Scalability work starts with the bottleneck that will actually bind, not the one that is fashionable to solve.
Working with internal developers, IT, and vendors
Architecture work fails when it is done to a team rather than with one. Internal developers know where the bodies are buried. IT knows the network, identity, and operational constraints. Vendors know their product's limits and their contract's boundaries. A useful assessment includes all three perspectives and distinguishes between a constraint that is real and one that is merely habitual.
I can lead the work, facilitate a decision, review a design produced by someone else, or embed with a team for a defined period. The engagement is structured so your people are more capable at the end, not more dependent on an outside opinion.
What an engagement looks like
- A free 40-minute working session. We define the business capability, the systems involved, the decision, and the constraint that makes it urgent.
- Discovery. I review documentation, code, data, integrations, and infrastructure, and speak with the people who own and operate the systems.
- Current-state assessment. A written picture of how the system works today, where the risks and dependencies are, and which findings are material.
- Target architecture and plan. Options, trade-offs, a recommended direction, a sequenced implementation plan, and the assumptions that need validation.
- Implementation support. I can build the integration, work alongside your developers, review vendor deliverables, or hand the plan to another team with enough context to execute.
Common questions
Is an architecture assessment the same as a code review?
No. A code review looks closely at one codebase. An architecture assessment looks at the system in context: applications, data, integrations, infrastructure, ownership, and operating constraints. Code quality may be part of the evidence, but it is not the whole question.
Can you review a design our vendor proposed?
Yes. An independent review can identify gaps, hidden dependencies, unrealistic assumptions, and questions worth asking before the contract is signed. The output is a short written opinion with specific, actionable concerns rather than a general critique.
Do you replace our internal architecture team?
No. I supplement it. The most useful engagements combine an outside perspective with the institutional knowledge your team already has. I document decisions and reasoning so that knowledge stays with the organization.
Can you help with one integration rather than a full assessment?
Yes. A focused integration or architecture decision is a legitimate engagement. If the narrow scope is likely to hide a larger dependency problem, I will say so before the work begins.
What is the best first step?
Book a free 40-minute working session, or send a short email describing the systems, the business capability, and the decision you are trying to make. A diagram is helpful but not required.
Serving Businesses Across Northeast Ohio
Expert Tech Pilot provides software architecture consulting and systems integration services to businesses in Cleveland, Akron, Solon, Independence, Macedonia, and surrounding Northeast Ohio communities. On-site consulting is available when a project benefits from in-person collaboration, with remote services available as well.
Architecture work benefits from time in the room with the people who own the systems, so on-site workshops are part of the model when they are useful. The rest of the engagement can be handled remotely, with the same direct access to the architect responsible for the work.