Microsoft SQL Server Experts in Munich

Product:

• Built a production-ready AI platform for generating brand-aware marketing images and videos from product data, user requirements, and uploaded media.
• Own the platform architecture, technical roadmap, API design, security, deployment workflow, operational reliability, and model-provider strategy.
• Developed the core platform in .NET and built supporting AI and workflow prototypes in Python, applying language-independent API contracts and structured interfaces between services and model providers.
• Implemented reliable background processing with RabbitMQ, persisted workflow state, idempotent handling, retries, failure recovery, logging, secure storage, authorization, and credit accounting.
• Made pragmatic build-versus-buy and model-routing decisions based on reliability, latency, cost, and maintainability rather than novelty.

Agent Orchestration & RAG Systems

• Built and compared agent workflows using Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, and LangChain, including tool use, conditional routing, clarification steps, state management, and hand-offs between agents.
• Implemented reusable .NET components for agents, prompts, tools, model providers, structured responses, and retrieval with pyvector, making it easier to change AI providers without rewriting the core workflow.

• Taught ML, BI, and Big Data to Master's students.

Tech: Python, Power BI, SQL, ML, SnowflakeDB, databricks, MS Fabric, MongoDB, LLM

• SAP S/4HANA upgrade from Release 2021 to 2025 and FI/CO transformation as part of a new TOM. Four streams and two SAP service providers; management during ongoing operations.

• Overall responsibility for time, quality and budget as well as cross-stream coordination of the four streams

• Coordination of process streams, business functions and SAP service providers

• Establishment and management of governance, planning, risks, dependencies, resources and escalations

• Provider management, regular management reporting, and preparation and execution of project and Steering Committee meetings

• Responsibility as Test Manager for test strategy, test planning, UAT, defect management and acceptance

• Result: Successful preparation for Go-live on 28.09.2026 during ongoing operations; quality and the planned absence of production interruptions ensured. Project governance established and positive feedback from management and stakeholders.

Project overview: The use of “Generative Pretrained Transformer” (GPT) technologies will greatly change the world of work in the coming years. ITZBund is developing a basic service for this purpose, which can be used by its 200 customers. This basic service is offered both on-premises and in the cloud. Launched in 12/23, production systems (based on the MVP) had already been successfully rolled out and operated for several authorities and federal ministries by 05/24.

Project metrics:

• 2024 budget approx. 20 Mio €
• approx. 70 people directly involved in the project
• regular (indirect) contact with approx. 80 people in the wider project environment

My main responsibilities:

• Overall responsibility as external project manager
• Project definition phase/ Project setup and establishment of the project organization
• Strategic and operational project planning, as well as project design and ongoing adjustments
• Ongoing coordination with the project owner and stakeholders at ITZBund
• Ongoing coordination with sub-project managers, agile roles, and other project team members
• Responsibility for project controlling, quality management, risk management, and change management
• Responsibility for providing the basic service in on-premises and cloud environments and its ongoing development
• Planning and leading several hypercare phases
• Collaboration and ongoing coordination with a federal ministry partner project and delivery of an MVP
• Coordination with the agile teams
• Coordination with operations, release, and deployment
• Responsibility for delivering initial customer projects
• Responsibility for developing AI governance
• Ensuring accessibility (BITV)
• Responsibility for setting up a sub-project for marketing activities
• Support in setting up an efficient proposal process
• Stakeholder management

Approach:

• V-Modell XT ITZBund
• Scrum

Tools used:

• Microsoft Office, Skype, MS Project, Confluence, Jira, Sharepoint, Miro

• Worked as freelance Senior DevOps Consultant on-site for IBM at a European Union Agency, operating in a highly secure, air-gapped environment managing classified systems.
• Led automation and DevOps initiatives for a large-scale OpenShift platform (>400 nodes), driving deployment efficiency, GitOps adoption, and operational automation using Ansible, Python, and Bash while ensuring compliance with security requirements.
• Spearheaded automation of release and deployment workflows in a private cloud environment hosting 400+ OpenShift nodes, significantly improving deployment speed and reliability.
• Migrated existing playbooks, roles, and templates from Ansible Tower to Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), ensuring full compliance with fully-qualified collection names (FQCN) and preparing custom Execution Environments (EE) for containerized automation.
• Implemented GitOps Agent for AAP Controller Configuration as Code, enabling automated synchronization (CRUD) of Ansible Controller objects based on repository-stored configuration definitions using GitHub webhooks.
• Designed and automated complex multi-step operational workflows including environment cleanup, Helix cluster component re-creation, Kafka topic management, and OpenShift object lifecycle management across ~100 environments.
• Achieved a reduction of multi-day manual operations to under a few hours through automation improvements spanning multiple AAP clusters and OpenShift environments.
• Integrated Ansible Automation Platform with Thycotic (Delinea) Secret Server via lookup plugin to enhance secure credential management in automated processes.
• Managed deployment tasks, platform troubleshooting, and Istio network configurations while adhering to stringent EU PSC security and compliance standards.
• Collaborated with infrastructure and application teams to refine deployment procedures, develop naming conventions, and continuously improve automation coverage in an air-gapped, classified environment.

• Development of a comprehensive transformation model for IT departments and ITSM organizations, from operational stabilization through structuring and optimization to strategic advancement
• Design of a transformation matrix that connects development phases with the implementation activities Position, Focus, Model, Enable, Anchor and Develop
• Development of assessment, maturity and decision-making logic to determine the operational starting point, the appropriate entry point and the prioritized areas of action
• Structuring of an end-to-end approach from current-state assessment and target vision through operating model, roadmap and service modules to implementation and integration into steady-state operations
• Derivation of combinable consulting and implementation modules, including methods, deliverables, role models, governance structures and transformation paths
• Collection, structuring and prioritization of business requirements from the perspectives of IT management, service management and operational roles
• Translation of requirements into target visions, process and role models, decision criteria and traceable deliverables

Environment / Tools: ITIL 4, IT4IT, Operating Model Canvas, SIAM, maturity models Kanban

• Clarification of project objectives, scope and the target business vision for building the AI-based knowledge database.
• Derivation of the initial architecture and implementation strategy for the Zasterbot chatbot, including separation of the MVP and further development stages.
• Development of a target business vision for building a structured knowledge database and integrating a future chatbot.
• Derivation and prioritization of use cases for information retrieval and provision by the chatbot.
• Modeling of data structures and flows for the effective organization of the knowledge database on the Base44 platform.
• Design and implementation of data models for storing and linking relevant information.
• Development of processes for extracting, analyzing and preparing raw data for the knowledge database.
• Ensuring data consistency and quality as the basis for the future chatbot.
• Planning the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for precise and context-specific answers.
• Implementation of functions for analyzing and displaying data from the knowledge database.
• Use of the Base44 platform with JSON Schema-based entities and a flexible permission concept.
• Implementation of Deno functions for backend logic, event processing and connecting external APIs.
• Integration of OpenAI services for initial data analysis.

• Modernization of a large-scale Java enterprise application*

The project is modernizing a complex enterprise application that has grown over many years. The existing Spring-based legacy system runs on Java 8, OSGi, and Eclipse RCP and is being gradually migrated to a modern, maintainable architecture with Java 25 and Quarkus.

Marcus works on analysis, architecture, refactoring, and implementation. One focus is on untangling historically grown structures and dependencies and on building a clean, sustainable Java and Quarkus technology stack.

Tools & technologies: Java 8, Java 25, Quarkus, Hibernate ORM with Panache, EclipseLink, OSGi, Eclipse RCP, Maven, JUnit, Mockito, REST, JSON, Git, Eclipse IDE, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, Jira, Confluence

• AI Integration (LLM & RAG): Designed and built an internal intelligent RAG system (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) based on LLMs, n8n, and vector data to automatically analyze technical documents and error logs.
• Design & Implementation: Designed a robust RS-232/UART communication interface for an SBC-based embedded device used to control medical shaker systems.
• Architecture & Protocol Design: Built a highly maintainable software structure (OOP, SOLID) and defined resilient, hardware-level communication protocols, including multithreading and advanced error handling.
• Quality Assurance & DevOps: Automated testing with xUnit, ran integration tests directly on the hardware target, and maintained technical documentation to strict medical technology standards via Azure DevOps.

Label: C#, .NET, LLMs, RAG, n8n, RS-232, UART, Multithreading, async/await, xUnit, gRPC/protobuf, Blazor, MudBlazor, EF Core, Visual Studio 2026, Azure DevOps

Unified ITSM framework

• Definition of a company-wide ITSM target picture
• Introduction of a uniform service structure across all business units

SLA and OLA management

• Building a standardized SLA framework
• Definition of service classes (Business Critical, Standard, Low Priority)
• Introduction of OLAs between internal teams
• Building meaningful SLA reporting
• Definition of KPI and service dashboards for business units

Service portfolio management

• Definition of service descriptions
• If needed, preparing possible cost and service billing

Ticketing & processes

• Incident management
• Uniform ticket categories
• Standardized prioritization
• Escalation matrix
• Automations
• Self-service optimization

Request fulfillment

• Service catalog across all business units
• Approval workflows

Problem management

• Introduction of root cause analysis
• Known error database
• Problem review process

Complete asset management concept

• Hardware lifecycle management
• Software lifecycle management
• Leasing lifecycle
• Mobile device lifecycle
• Monitor lifecycle
• Phone lifecycle

Processes

• Procurement
• Goods receipt
• Inventory
• Assignment
• Return
• Disposal
• Leasing return Goal: single source of truth for all assets

CMDB design

• Definition of all configuration items:
• Workplace
• Notebooks
• Monitors
• Mobile phones
• Printers

Infrastructure

• Servers
• Firewalls
• Switches
• WLAN
• Storage
• Backup systems

Cloud

• Azure resources
• Microsoft 365
• SaaS services

Relationships

• User ↔ Asset
• Asset ↔ Service
• Service ↔ Infrastructure
• Location ↔ Asset
• Goal: make all service dependencies visible

Software asset & license management

• License management concept
• License balancing
• Compliance reporting
• Microsoft license management
• Adobe license management
• SaaS management
• Contract management
• Renewal management

Interfaces & automation Existing systems

• Workday
• Joiner
• Mover
• Leaver

TESMA

• Leasing data
• Contract data

Matrix42

• Asset synchronization
• User synchronization

Active Directory / Entra ID

• User management

Microsoft 365

• License assignment
• Group management

Dormakaba

• Access processes

• Lifecycle services

Monitoring platforms

• PRTG
• Palo Alto
• Cisco

Reporting & KPI framework

• Definition of a management dashboard
• KPIs
• Ticket volume
• SLA fulfillment
• MTTR
• First resolution rate
• Asset accuracy
• License compliance
• Change success rate
• Service availability
• Degree of automation

Network redesign support

• Governance
• Support of the network redesign from an ITSM point of view
• Definition of affected services
• Change management structure
• Communication concept

CMDB integration

• Recording of all network components
• Service mapping
• Dependency analysis

Validation of documentation and knowledge base articles

• Network documentation
• Operations documentation
• Standard changes

Monitoring & event management

• Target picture
• Central monitoring concept
• Event management process
• Alerting strategy
• Escalation model

Systems

• Cisco

• Palo Alto

• Fortinet

• Rubrik

• Veeam

• Matrix42

• Azure

• Microsoft 365 Automation

• Ticket creation from monitoring

• Escalations

• Standard actions

Audit, compliance & information security

• ISO 27001 consulting
• TISAX consulting
• NIS2 preparation - consulting
• Audit-ready processes
• Documentation structure
• Evidence tracking in Matrix42

Roadmap

• 12-month roadmap
• Prioritization of all measures
• Quick wins
• Medium-term projects
• Long-term target picture
• Documentation

• Led enterprise reporting modernization by migrating legacy SSRS reporting solutions to Power BI, supporting 500+ business users while ensuring full GDPR/DSGVO compliance.
• Designed and optimized Power BI and Microsoft Fabric semantic models using star schema, dimensional modeling, advanced DAX, and performance optimization techniques, reducing query latency by 25%.
• Delivered 20+ executive and operational dashboards featuring KPI scorecards, drill-through, bookmarks, and row-level security, improving reporting efficiency by 20%.
• Enabled self-service analytics through governed Power BI datasets, dataflows, and gateway architecture, increasing business-led reporting adoption by 35%.
• Configured an incremental refresh policy and query folding for a 50+ million row sales dataset, reducing daily report refresh times by 85%.
• Deployed automated ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, and Snowflake, reducing reporting delivery timelines by 40% through workflow automation.
• Spearheaded Microsoft Fabric analytics modernization initiatives including lakehouse architecture, OneLake integration, and centralized data platform development, reducing data latency from 2 hours to 20 minutes.
• Translated business requirements from 15+ stakeholders into scalable Power BI semantic models and dashboards, improving reporting consistency and reducing ad-hoc reporting requests by 25%.
• Applied Microsoft Copilot and generative AI tools to accelerate SQL development, DAX authoring, technical documentation, and testing activities, reducing development effort by approximately 15 hours per week.

Oracle Project Management and Automation

As part of the project, the operation of an Oracle infrastructure was automated by developing and enhancing Puppet modules and migrating existing Bash scripts to a standardized configuration management solution.

The aim of the project was to standardize and automate administrative processes, improve the maintainability of the Oracle platform, and increase the efficiency and traceability of infrastructure management through the use of Infrastructure as Code.

• Analysis and migration of existing Bash shell scripts to a Puppet-based automation solution
• Development and enhancement of Puppet modules for Oracle environments
• Automation of installation, configuration and operational processes using Infrastructure as Code
• Standardization and optimization of configuration management for Oracle systems
• Creation and maintenance of technical and operational documentation
• Planning, coordination and professional support during project implementation
• Operation and automation of Oracle systems on x86-based Linux server platforms
• Testing and quality assurance of the developed Puppet modules
• Analysis and resolution of technical errors as part of the automation and migration
• Close coordination with specialist departments and infrastructure teams to implement automation requirements

Technologies used: Puppet 7/8, SLES 15, Oracle 19, Oracle Grid, SVN, Windows Server, Confluence, VS Code, Ruby, Bash, Pass

• Building, implementing and selling automated Data Science solutions such as Scorecard Factory and Forecast Factory
• Implementation of automated end-to-end cloud processes
• Development of LLM and NLP models
• Creation of interactive reports
• Support for national and international large corporations as well as medium-sized companies in implementing ML projects

• Defined the vision, strategy, and roadmap of AI-powered analytics products, ensuring they met the business needs of Sales, Marketing, Finance, and executive teams across Europe.
• Collected business requirements, prioritized AI product features, and led Agile development of forecasting and analytics solutions. Defined product specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria to ensure successful delivery.
• Collaborated with business stakeholders, Product Owners, data scientists, ML engineers and software engineers to transform AI models into scalable business products and integrate AI insights into operational workflows.
• Designed and implemented Generative AI solutions leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate reporting and enable natural-language querying of enterprise data, reducing manual effort by approximately 30%.
• Defined product goals and success metrics, tracked product performance and user adoption, and continuously improved the product based on user feedback and business results.
• Established data governance, master data quality and reporting standards across SQL, BigQuery and Power BI environments to ensure reliable, secure and scalable analytics.