IT‑IS‑Networking
Technology › Security Architecture

Palo Alto Networks

The platform underneath the city's multi-tenant firewall boundary — multi-vsys, per-tenant routing domains and policy on shared hardware.

Also known as PAN-OS, Palo Alto

Left to right is time. Each row is one of the 8 disciplines this one worked alongside, ordered so kindred disciplines sit next to each other rather than alphabetically — a landscape only means anything if neighboring rows belong together. Height is the work running in that domain in that year, weighted by what failure would have cost — life-safety ×3, a statutory obligation ×2.2, the estate itself ×1.5, an evaluation ×1. Every project declares which of those it was, so each ridge traces to an entry you can open and disagree with. Only the work that used this technology is counted, so what shows here is the company it kept rather than the record around it. Height and color are on the record-wide scale rather than this page’s own, so a modest estate draws a modest landscape and any two of these pages can be read against each other.

Enterprise Palo Alto deployment as the multi-tenant boundary across six independently governed agencies, and as the platform migrated onto during the Annex data center consolidation.

Applied in

  • Enterprise Architecture Practice Build2024–2026An architecture practice of up to fourteen, built and run to a design review gate and a weekly rhythm — so engagements were delivered against one design language rather than individual preference.
  • Vendor and Partner Program2024–2026Seven technology and service partners brought in across two years for capability the practice did not have or could not scale, with a formal manufacturer specialization track behind it.
  • Enterprise Multi-Tenant Firewall Architecture2020–2024Six independently governed agencies on shared infrastructure, none able to reach, disrupt or inherit the regulatory exposure of any other.
  • Fire & Rescue Mobile Gateway and SD-WAN Overlay2012–2023Three hundred apparatus turned into routed nodes on the enterprise network — dual carriers on private APNs, head-ends behind two providers, and a zero-trust overlay behind a firewall virtual system built for the fleet.
  • Annex to Main Data Center Consolidation2010–2018Moving one data center into another with the estate live throughout, on three design documents at revisions ten, twelve and ten.
  • Enterprise Firewall Policy and OperationsMay 2009 – March 2017Eight years running the rule base directly across two platform generations — every rule, change and upgrade — then handing it down to a dedicated post rather than holding it.

Career

Documents

See also