Solution Architect · Melbourne

Solution architect who designs and delivers data & AI platforms for high-security environments, and equips in-house teams to own and sustain them.

Over two decades across the public and private sectors, from enterprise data warehousing and IoT to containerised data & AI platforms. I’ve been the architect, the delivery lead, the program manager and the customer.

Over two decades across the public and private sectors, as architect, delivery lead, program manager and customer.

Nick Draper
IBM Champion 2026

Selected work

Problem → constraints → decision → outcome

Case study 01 · Platform reliability

Know Your Cluster

“It’s green, so it must be healthy.”

Most teams treat a green dashboard as proof of health and only look deeper once something breaks. We built the observability to see what self-healing hides, and the discipline to act on it before it became an outage.

  • 30+ dashboards
  • 0 chronic alerts
Read the case study: Know Your Cluster
is it up? healthy? tuned?

Case study 02 · Platform lifecycle

Keeping pace

“How do we keep pace with upgrades?”

Modern platforms release continuously, and a high-security environment can’t download its way to the next version. We made upgrades a planned, repeatable practice, run by our own people and kept inside vendor support.

  • Air-gapped
  • Run in-house
Read the case study: Keeping pace
connected air gap upgrade upgrade next one

Case study 03 · Data to decisions

Oil Condition Monitoring

“We service on the calendar, not on condition.”

Fixed servicing intervals waste effort and still miss early signs of failure. Integrating oil analysis, sensor readings, usage and maintenance history let Army service armoured vehicles on evidence.

  • Defence Data Strategy
  • Millions saved in maintenance
Read the case study: Oil Condition Monitoring
service now? oil · sensors · records

Writing

Field notes on running platforms where the internet isn’t. Published on Medium.

All writing
  1. Know Your Cluster: Turning Observability into Operational Confidence (on Medium)
  2. Good practices when mirroring OpenShift content for air-gapped IBM Fusion HCI (on Medium)
  3. Streamlining IBM Fusion Upgrades with OpenShift Control-Plane Only updates (on Medium)

Talks & teaching

From OLAP research in Prato to platform engineering in Orlando.

All talks
  1. 2026Turning Observability into Operational ConfidenceDefence Success Day, Canberra
  2. 2025IBM Fusion for Bare Metal OpenShift within an Air-Gapped Data CentreIBM TechXchange, Orlando
  3. 2012Helping enable Information Governance within the Australian Defence Materiel OrganisationIBM Information On Demand, Las Vegas
  4. 2004An experimental evaluation of an alternative to the pivot table for ad hoc access to OLAP dataDSS2004, Prato
  5. 2004–07Dimensional Modelling; Data Warehouse Development MethodologiesMonash University, tutor

Let’s connect

Building data or AI capability in a high-security environment? I’m always glad to compare notes.

Connect on LinkedIn