Articles, research, whitepapers, and engineering notes by Pavel Glukhikh: enterprise architecture, AI integrity, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and leadership.https://iampavel.com/en-usme@iampavel.com (Pavel Glukhikh)https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/network-segmentation-strategy/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/network-segmentation-strategy/How to design network segmentation an enterprise can operate: zone models, enforcement points, identity integration, and a migration path from flat networks.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/technology-roadmaps/https://iampavel.com/leadership/technology-roadmaps/A technology roadmap is a set of decision records over time, not Gantt theater. How to anchor to EOL realities, sequence by risk, and re-plan quarterly.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/critical-infrastructure-protection/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/critical-infrastructure-protection/Critical infrastructure protection explained by dependency: sector interdependencies, CISA and NERC CIP context, and the defenses that matter to operators.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/enterprise-ai-adoption-framework/https://iampavel.com/ai/enterprise-ai-adoption-framework/A staged enterprise AI adoption framework from an architect's seat: use-case triage, build vs buy vs wait, platform foundations, and metrics that matter.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/operational-resilience/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/operational-resilience/Operational resilience as an engineered property: failure domains, degraded-mode design, tested RTO over dashboard uptime, and real failover discipline.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/cloudflare-workers-static-sites/https://iampavel.com/notes/cloudflare-workers-static-sites/Serving a static Astro build from Cloudflare Workers: trailing slashes, custom 404s, caching, and the one-command deploy loop — this site's exact setup.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/ai-risk-management/https://iampavel.com/ai/ai-risk-management/AI risk management that engineers can run: a five-domain taxonomy, assessments that produce decisions, NIST AI RMF mapping, and monitoring that closes the loop.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/digital-transformation/https://iampavel.com/leadership/digital-transformation/What digital transformation actually gets funded to mean, why most programs fail, and how to tell a real modernization program from an expensive show.Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/infrastructure-modernization/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/infrastructure-modernization/An infrastructure modernization approach without transformation theater: what to replace, what to keep, strangler patterns, funding, and risk-first sequencing.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/zero-trust-architecture/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/zero-trust-architecture/Zero trust architecture explained by a practitioner: the policy decision model, identity as control plane, migration sequencing, and what it won't fix.Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/research/autonomous-infrastructure/https://iampavel.com/research/autonomous-infrastructure/An investigation into closed-loop infrastructure automation — from auto-remediation to AI-driven operations — and where human accountability must survive.Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/cloud-architecture/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/cloud-architecture/Cloud architecture as engineering, not ideology: landing zones, identity, network, data gravity, and egress economics — the decisions that actually matter.Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ot-remote-access-architecture/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ot-remote-access-architecture/Safe remote access to industrial control systems: jump architecture, session brokering, MFA, break-glass paths, and what should never be exposed.Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/rag-architecture-for-the-enterprise/https://iampavel.com/ai/rag-architecture-for-the-enterprise/Enterprise RAG architecture end to end: pipeline design, chunking and index tradeoffs, permission-aware retrieval, and measuring grounding faithfulness.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/infrastructure-as-code-operating-model/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/infrastructure-as-code-operating-model/Infrastructure as code beyond the tooling: repo structure, review gates, drift management, state security, and CI/CD pipelines that make IaC trustworthy.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/kubernetes/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/kubernetes/Kubernetes explained as a control loop over desired state: when it earns its complexity, the production-readiness territory, and what operating it costs.Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/architecture-library/hybrid-cloud-landing-zone/https://iampavel.com/architecture-library/hybrid-cloud-landing-zone/Reference architecture for a hybrid cloud landing zone: account structure, identity federation, VPN/DX connectivity, policy guardrails, and cost visibility.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/gaming-leadership-real-skills/https://iampavel.com/leadership/gaming-leadership-real-skills/A serious look at leading large gaming organizations — EVE Online corporations and alliances — and the management skills that transfer to the workplace.Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/responsible-ai/https://iampavel.com/ai/responsible-ai/Responsible AI decomposed into engineering terms: integrity, security, accountability, and transparency, and the operational controls that make each real.Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/ai-governance/https://iampavel.com/ai/ai-governance/What AI governance actually is: decision rights backed by evidence, the artifact set that makes it real, and where the EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF fit.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/whitepapers/ai-integrity-reference-model/https://iampavel.com/whitepapers/ai-integrity-reference-model/A four-layer reference model for AI integrity — data, model behavior, interaction security, accountability — with control objectives and NIST AI RMF mapping.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/security-architecture-review-checklist/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/security-architecture-review-checklist/A working security architecture review method: data-flow-first analysis, trust boundary mapping, the questions that expose real risk, and a usable checklist.Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/zero-trust/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/zero-trust/What zero trust actually means, where it came from, and how to start: a practitioner's orientation to the model, the ecosystem, and the first moves.Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/ransomware-defense/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/ransomware-defense/Ransomware defense mapped as a lifecycle — prevent, contain, survive, recover — and the engineering decisions at each stage that decide the outcome.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/engineering-management/https://iampavel.com/leadership/engineering-management/Engineering management without the clichés: decision quality, context distribution, operational accountability, the IC transition, and the anti-patterns.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/operational-technology/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/operational-technology/What operational technology is, why OT and IT grew apart, and how data, remote access, and AI are forcing them back together. From four years on plant networks.Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/scada-security/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/scada-security/SCADA security explained by an engineer who ran plant control networks: why OT differs from IT, the real threat model, and the control set that works.Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/vpn-architecture-patterns/https://iampavel.com/networking/vpn-architecture-patterns/VPN architecture from an operator's seat: site-to-site vs remote access, WireGuard vs IPsec vs TLS, split vs full tunnel, and where ZTNA replaces the VPN.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ot-it-convergence-strategy/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ot-it-convergence-strategy/OT/IT convergence beyond the buzzword: shared services that work, the patching reality, who owns the boundary firewall, and earning trust with operations.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/network-documentation-that-works/https://iampavel.com/networking/network-documentation-that-works/The network documentation that gets used and stays current: L3 diagrams, IPAM, patch records, change logs, and the docs-as-code workflow that keeps them alive.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/architecture-library/observability-platform/https://iampavel.com/architecture-library/observability-platform/Reference architecture for observability: metrics, logs, and trace pipelines, tiered storage, retention economics, alert routing, and dashboard governance.Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/evaluating-ai-systems-in-production/https://iampavel.com/ai/evaluating-ai-systems-in-production/A working AI evaluation program: golden sets that gate releases, drift monitoring, human review sampling, and incident thresholds that trigger a rollback.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/cloud-vs-onprem-decision-framework/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/cloud-vs-onprem-decision-framework/A cloud vs on-premises framework built on real constraints: egress costs, data gravity, compliance, latency, and staffing — and why hybrid is the usual answer.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/from-engineer-to-executive/https://iampavel.com/leadership/from-engineer-to-executive/The engineer to executive path through its real transitions — IC to lead to manager to executive — what each takes from you and what to refuse to give up.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/whitepapers/resilient-multi-site-infrastructure/https://iampavel.com/whitepapers/resilient-multi-site-infrastructure/Designing infrastructure that survives site loss: failure domains, active-active vs active-passive, replication and RPO/RTO math, and failover testing.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/research/datacenter-energy-constraints/https://iampavel.com/research/datacenter-energy-constraints/Why power availability — not chips or capital — is becoming the limiting factor for AI-era infrastructure, and what it means for architecture decisions today.Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/incident-response-for-infrastructure-teams/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/incident-response-for-infrastructure-teams/Incident response for infrastructure teams: the preparation artifacts that matter, containment calls under pressure, and balancing evidence with recovery.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/research/measuring-ai-integrity/https://iampavel.com/research/measuring-ai-integrity/An active research program on measuring AI integrity: why accuracy metrics miss it, dimensions like grounding faithfulness, and harness design.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/proxmox-cluster-quorum/https://iampavel.com/notes/proxmox-cluster-quorum/Why two-node Proxmox clusters lock up, how corosync counts votes, setting up a corosync QDevice tiebreaker, and the safe node-maintenance procedure.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/active-directory-hardening-quick-wins/https://iampavel.com/notes/active-directory-hardening-quick-wins/Ten AD hardening quick wins in priority order: admin tiering, Windows LAPS, killing NTLMv1 and SMBv1, krbtgt rotation, and audit policy that catches abuse.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/architecture-library/ot-network-reference/https://iampavel.com/architecture-library/ot-network-reference/Purdue-informed OT network reference: zones and conduits, industrial DMZ, unidirectional gateway options, secure remote access, and sensor placement.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/network-troubleshooting-methodology/https://iampavel.com/networking/network-troubleshooting-methodology/A network troubleshooting method that survives real outages: OSI layering used correctly, the ping-to-packet-capture tooling ladder, and symptom traps to avoid.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ics-threat-landscape/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ics-threat-landscape/A realistic ICS threat landscape for operators: ransomware spillover, exposed devices, vendor access — and what Stuxnet through PIPEDREAM really teach.Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/securing-llm-applications/https://iampavel.com/ai/securing-llm-applications/A practical LLM security threat model — prompt injection, data exfiltration, tool abuse, supply chain — and the defensive architecture that contains them.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/client-technology-leadership/https://iampavel.com/leadership/client-technology-leadership/Inside the client technology leader role: owning technical strategy for someone else's business, balancing delivery with innovation, and telling sales no.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/building-a-production-grade-lab/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/building-a-production-grade-lab/How to build an engineering home lab that mirrors production: hardware tiers, virtualization choices, network segmentation, and the skills worth practicing.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/whitepapers/ics-security-program-blueprint/https://iampavel.com/whitepapers/ics-security-program-blueprint/A blueprint for an industrial control system security program: governance, asset inventory, Purdue-informed architecture, OT monitoring, and incident response.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/prometheus-cardinality-control/https://iampavel.com/notes/prometheus-cardinality-control/Hunting high-cardinality Prometheus series with tsdb analyze and topk queries, then killing them with relabel drops, limits, and recording rules.Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/architecture-library/production-kubernetes-platform/https://iampavel.com/architecture-library/production-kubernetes-platform/Reference architecture for production Kubernetes: HA control plane, ingress, GitOps delivery, observability, backup, and multi-environment promotion.Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/identity-first-security/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/identity-first-security/Identity security in practice: the tiered admin model, where MFA belongs, taming service accounts, conditional access, and surviving an IdP compromise.Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/dns-architecture-resilience/https://iampavel.com/networking/dns-architecture-resilience/DNS architecture that fails gracefully: authoritative/recursive separation, anycast, TTL strategy, DNSSEC tradeoffs, and the failure patterns behind outages.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/ai-governance-for-engineers/https://iampavel.com/ai/ai-governance-for-engineers/AI governance that ships as code: policy-as-code, model cards, audit trails, and the NIST AI RMF mapped to engineering artifacts your teams already produce.Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/technical-decision-making/https://iampavel.com/leadership/technical-decision-making/A working system for technical decision making: decision records, reversible vs one-way doors, disagree-and-commit, and review boards that aren't theater.Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/observability-stack-design/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/observability-stack-design/How to design an observability stack that engineers trust: Prometheus and Loki-class architecture, retention and cost engineering, and symptom-based alerting.Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/scada-network-design/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/scada-network-design/SCADA network design from the wire up: polling vs report-by-exception, Modbus and DNP3 security realities, redundancy, time sync, and remote site links.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/wildcard-certificates-dns01/https://iampavel.com/notes/wildcard-certificates-dns01/Issuing Let's Encrypt wildcard certificates via DNS-01 with acme.sh and certbot: API-token scoping, propagation pitfalls, and renewal monitoring that works.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/whitepapers/zero-trust-mid-size-enterprise/https://iampavel.com/whitepapers/zero-trust-mid-size-enterprise/A pragmatic zero trust architecture for 500–5,000-user organizations: what to build, what to buy, what to skip, with a phase plan grounded in NIST SP 800-207.Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/architecture-library/secure-enterprise-network/https://iampavel.com/architecture-library/secure-enterprise-network/Reference architecture for a zoned campus and datacenter network: L3 core, firewall placement, NAC admission, and an isolated management plane.Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/diagnosing-bgp-session-flaps/https://iampavel.com/notes/diagnosing-bgp-session-flaps/A field checklist for BGP session flaps: reading reset reasons, hold-timer analysis, MTU blackholes, dampening, and TCP resets — Cisco and FRR commands.Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/backup-and-recovery-security/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/backup-and-recovery-security/Backup security design for the era when attackers hunt backups first: isolation architectures, immutability options, air gaps, and restore testing that counts.Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/enterprise-ai-architecture-patterns/https://iampavel.com/ai/enterprise-ai-architecture-patterns/Five enterprise AI architecture patterns — gateway, retrieval grounding, human-in-the-loop, evals, model portfolio — when each applies, plus the anti-patterns.Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/managing-engineering-teams-at-scale/https://iampavel.com/leadership/managing-engineering-teams-at-scale/Managing engineering teams past the size where you know everything: operating rhythm, delegation layers, skip-levels, and keeping technical credibility.Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/bgp-for-enterprises/https://iampavel.com/networking/bgp-for-enterprises/A practitioner's guide to BGP for enterprises: when multihoming justifies it, route filtering per RFC 7454 and MANRS, communities, and the classic mistakes.Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/purdue-model-modern-ot/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/purdue-model-modern-ot/An honest engineer's take on the Purdue model: the levels and OT DMZ explained, what cloud and IIoT actually broke, and how to apply it to real plants now.Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/esxi-ransomware-recovery/https://iampavel.com/notes/esxi-ransomware-recovery/Why ESXiArgs-style ransomware often leaves VM data intact, and the vmkfstools descriptor-rebuild procedure that brings encrypted VMs back without paying.Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/kubernetes-troubleshooting-method/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/kubernetes-troubleshooting-method/A systematic Kubernetes troubleshooting method — cluster, node, workload, network, storage — with the kubectl commands in order and common failure signatures.Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/notes/etcd-backup-and-restore/https://iampavel.com/notes/etcd-backup-and-restore/Working notes on etcd snapshot and restore for kubeadm Kubernetes clusters: exact commands, the data-dir and cluster-token gotchas, and verification steps.Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/leadership/servant-leadership-in-engineering/https://iampavel.com/leadership/servant-leadership-in-engineering/What servant leadership actually looks like for technical teams: removing blockers, absorbing pressure, routing credit downward, and knowing when it fails.Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/ransomware-resilient-architecture/https://iampavel.com/cybersecurity/ransomware-resilient-architecture/How to design for ransomware resilience: tiered identity, isolated and immutable backups, recovery-time engineering, and lessons from the ESXiArgs campaign.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/ai/ai-integrity-engineering-framework/https://iampavel.com/ai/ai-integrity-engineering-framework/AI integrity as an engineering discipline: verifiable behavior, governed data paths, resistance to manipulation, and a maturity model to build against.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/infrastructure/production-kubernetes-architecture/https://iampavel.com/infrastructure/production-kubernetes-architecture/Production Kubernetes architecture decisions that separate lab clusters from real platforms: control plane topology, node pools, ingress, storage, upgrades.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/networking/enterprise-network-design-fundamentals/https://iampavel.com/networking/enterprise-network-design-fundamentals/Enterprise network design from the failure modes up: hierarchy, L2/L3 boundaries, HSRP/VRRP redundancy, and capacity planning that survives growth.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ics-security-fundamentals/https://iampavel.com/industrial-systems/ics-security-fundamentals/What makes ICS security different from IT: availability-first priorities, decade-long asset lifecycles, physical consequences, and the control set that works.Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT