The Well-Architected Architect

Modernizing Cloud Excellence in 2025

Chris Ayers

Chris Ayers

Senior Site Reliability Engineer
Azure CXP AzRel
Microsoft

BlueSky: @chris-ayers.com
LinkedIn: - chris-l-ayers
Blog: https://chris-ayers.com/
GitHub: Codebytes
Mastodon: @Chrisayers@hachyderm.io
Twitter: @Chris_L_Ayers

Agenda

• Solution Architecture Fundamentals
• Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Pillar Deep Dive
• Trade-Offs
• WAF Service Guides & Impact
• Well-Architected Workloads
• Q&A

Solution Architecture Fundamentals

7 Principles for Cloud Excellence

1. Decision-Making Framework

# ADR-001: Multi-Region Strategy
Status: Accepted
Date: 2025-01-15

## Context
Need 99.99% availability for 
critical healthcare platform

## Decision
Implement active-active across
3 Azure regions

## Consequences
- 3x infrastructure cost
- Complex data sync

2. Master Cloud Design Patterns

Pro Tip: Start with Azure Architecture Center pattern catalog

3. Forward-Thinking Design

4. Design for Supportability

Success Metric: Time to resolve incidents ↓ 75% with proper observability

5. Continuous Skill Enhancement

6. Collaboration Excellence

Key Partnerships

7. Methodical Design Approach

Structure Brings Success

Essential Tools

• Design: Visio, Draw.io, Lucidchart, C4 Model
• Documentation: ADRs, Wiki, Backstage
• Assessment: WAF Review, Azure Advisor
• Validation: Chaos Engineering, Load Testing

"A good architecture is not accidental—it's methodical"

Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework

Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework Goals

The Azure Well-Architected Framework drives real world business outcomes by guiding organizations to:

• Enhance Resilience: Higher availability and faster recovery
• Improve Security: Proactive protection of critical data
• Optimize Costs: Streamlined resource usage
• Accelerate Innovation: Faster feature deployment
• Boost Operational Excellence: Robust monitoring and automation

Business Impact: Real Numbers

Proven ROI & Outcomes

• 304% ROI within 3 years (Forrester Study)
• 40% reduction in downtime (Global Retailer)
• 25% cost savings (Financial Services)
• 75% faster server updates (Manufacturing)
• 93/100 security score (Profisee)

Framework Benefits

• Resilient, available, and recoverable workloads
• Strong security and risk management
• Optimized costs with high ROI
• Support for agile development and operations
• Consistent performance and scalability

The Five Pillars

Pillar Design Principles: Reliability

A reliable workload must survive outages and malfunctions while continuing to consistently provide its intended functionality.

• Business Requirements: Requirements must cover user experience, data, workflows, and characteristics that are unique to the workload.
• Resilience: Operate with full or reduced functionality
• Recovery: Recover with minimal disruption
• Operations: Anticipate failure conditions
• Simplicity: Avoid overengineering

Reliability

Pillar Design Principles: Security

• Plan Security Readiness: Establish a proactive security posture
• Protect Critical Assets: Ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability
• Evolve Continuously: Stay ahead of emerging threats

Pillar Design Principles: Cost Optimization

• Discipline: Develop robust cost-management practices
• Mindset: Focus on efficiency in resource usage
• Monitoring: Continuously analyze and optimize spending

Pillar Design Principles: Operational Excellence

• Embrace DevOps: Foster a culture of continuous improvement
• Enhance Observability: Implement robust monitoring practices
• Deploy Confidently: Streamline deployment processes
• Automate: Increase efficiency through process automation

Pillar Design Principles: Performance Efficiency

• Set Realistic Targets: Establish achievable performance goals
• Meet Capacity Needs: Ensure sufficient resources are available
• Optimize Continuously: Enhance efficiency through ongoing improvements

Trade-Offs

Key Well-Architected Framework Trade-Offs

Well-Architected Framework Pillar Interactions

Cloud Architecture Scenario 1

Your healthcare organization is designing a new patient records system that will store sensitive medical data.

Which priority order best addresses your needs?

• A. Cost → Performance → Security → Reliability
• B. Security → Reliability → Performance → Cost
• C. Performance → Reliability → Security → Cost
• D. Reliability → Cost → Performance → Security

Cloud Architecture Scenario 2

A retail company is building a new e-commerce platform for Black Friday sales, expecting 10x normal traffic.

Which approach would you recommend?

• A. Single region deployment with basic monitoring to minimize costs
• B. Multi-region active-passive deployment with auto-scaling
• C. Multi-region active-active deployment with predictive scaling
• D. Serverless architecture with minimal upfront capacity planning

Cloud Architecture Scenario 3

A financial services company needs to modernize their legacy batch processing system that currently runs nightly jobs.

Which architectural decision would provide the best balance of the Well-Architected pillars?

• A. Lift-and-shift to cloud VMs to minimize development costs
• B. Refactor into microservices with full event-driven architecture
• C. Replatform to managed services while maintaining core workflows
• D. Rebuild entirely with cutting-edge AI/ML optimization

Cloud Architecture Scenario 4

A startup is launching a social media application and needs to balance limited funding with growth potential.

Which Well-Architected approach offers the best strategy?

• A. Start with comprehensive security and compliance controls
• B. Begin with minimal viable architecture, plan incremental improvements
• C. Deploy in multiple regions immediately for global reliability
• D. Invest heavily in automated operations from day one

Well-Architected Framework Service Guides

A Decision-Making Tool

• Assist in selecting Azure components for your workload
• Highlight core features and capabilities essential for excellence
• Not exhaustive configuration guides; emphasize what aligns with Well-Architected pillars
• Enable informed decisions that support a state of operational excellence

Well-Architected Workloads

• Align workloads with business outcomes using the Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Balancing functional requirements and nonfunctional trade-offs
• Integrate design fundamentals, trade-offs, and operational best practices

Well-Architected Workloads Examples

• AI
• Azure Virtual Desktop
• Azure VMware Solution
• Mission-critical applications
• Oracle
• SaaS Solutions
• SAP

Well-Architected Framework Demos