Modular monolith to microservices
Build the monolith now and extract a service later without a rewrite: module discovery, database-per-service, gRPC contracts, and a YARP gateway.
Senior Software Architect
Ivan Ball-llovera
Cloud-native enterprise architecture on the Microsoft stack
I design and ship production-grade .NET platforms: modular monoliths that extract cleanly into microservices, event-driven messaging, and Azure-native delivery, with architecture discipline enforced at build time, not in a wiki.
25+
Years on the Microsoft stack
15
Open-source NuGet packages
2
Atlanta tech conferences organized
About
Architecture that earns its keep
I am a Senior Software Architect with more than 25 years designing and delivering scalable, cloud-native systems on the Microsoft stack. My focus is Domain-Driven Design, Clean Architecture, CQRS, and microservices, paired with hands-on Azure cloud architecture and DevOps (Bicep, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD).
I have a proven record of leading architectural refactors, modernizing legacy platforms, and mentoring cross-functional teams to raise engineering standards. Right now I am architecting production-grade .NET 10 platforms that span the modular-monolith-to-microservices path, event-driven messaging, and AI/RAG integration, while using AI-assisted development workflows to ship faster without trading away quality.
Architecture & design
DDD, Clean Architecture, CQRS, modular monolith to microservices, event-driven and the outbox pattern, gRPC, and API gateways (YARP).
Cloud & DevOps
Azure Container Apps, Service Bus, Cosmos DB, SQL, and App Insights, with Bicep IaC, containers, Kubernetes, and OIDC / managed identity.
Quality & delivery
xUnit, Playwright, TDD, accessibility (axe, WCAG 2.1 AA), architecture fitness functions, and AI-assisted development with Claude Code and Copilot.
Featured work
The MMCA platform
An open-source .NET 10 reference platform: a 15-package framework plus real applications that prove the patterns in production.
MMCA is a production-grade .NET 10 framework and a set of reference apps that demonstrate modern enterprise architecture end-to-end. It is built as a modular monolith that extracts cleanly into independent microservices: modules load in topological order and run behind a YARP gateway with gRPC contracts and typed clients, keeping transport reversible at the edge. The conference application was deployed to Azure and powered the live 2026 Atlanta Cloud + AI Conference, and will also power the 2026 Atlanta Developers Conference.
Writing
Deep dives on enterprise .NET
A long-form series turning the framework's decisions into teachable patterns. A few starting points:
The transactional outbox
Events that survive a crash: persist them atomically with your data, then dispatch in-process or over a broker with at-least-once delivery.
Architecture fitness functions
Rules that fail the build, not a wiki page: a compile-time layer guard plus a shared NetArchTest rule library run across every repo.
Community
Speaking & giving back
I help run two community-driven Atlanta technology conferences and keep production-grade patterns free and in the open.
Conference organizer & speaker
Lead organizer of the Atlanta Cloud + AI Conference (324 attendees, 53 speakers, 50 sessions in 2026) and the Atlanta Developers Conference, where I also speak on Clean Architecture and DDD.
Open source & mentorship
My framework is Apache-2.0 licensed and documented so production-grade enterprise patterns are in anyone's hands for free. I mentor engineers at every level, in English and Spanish.