Written by 8:08 pm Microsoft, Microsoft Azure

What’s new in the Azure Well-Architected Framework

What’s new in the Well-Architected Framework

Today, Uli Homann announced a big refresh of the Azure Well-Architected Framework for designing and running optimized workloads on Azure. The Azure Well-Architected Framework (WAF) is a set of quality-driven tenets, architectural decision points, and review tools intended to help solution architects build a technical foundation for their workloads. This guidance will help customers make informed architectural decisions for their workloads and show them how to apply it in their organizational context. The guidance is consistent and high-quality.

I had the chance to talk to Dom Allen, Principal Program Manager in the Microsoft Skilling organization about the updates to the Azure Well-Architected Framework.

Details of the refreshed Azure Well-Architected Framework

Design principles. Presents goal-oriented principles that build a foundation for the workload. Each principle includes a set of recommended approaches and the benefits of taking those approaches. The principles for each pillar have changed in terms of content and coverage.

Design review checklists. Lists roughly codified recommendations that drive action. Use the checklists during the design phase of your new workload and to evaluate brownfield workloads.

Trade-offs. Describes tradeoffs with other pillars. Many design decisions force a tradeoff. It’s vital to understand how achieving the goals of one pillar might make achieving the goals of another pillar more challenging.

Recommendation guides. Every design review checklist recommendation is associated with one or more guides. They explain the key strategies to fulfill that recommendation. They also include how Azure can facilitate workload design to help achieve that recommendation. Some of these guides are new, and others are refreshed versions of guides that cover a similar concept. The recommendation guides include trade-offs along with risks.

Cloud design patterns. Build your design on proven, common architecture patterns. The Azure Architecture Center maintains the Cloud Design Patterns catalog. Each pillar includes descriptions of the cloud design patterns that are relevant to the goals of the pillar and how they support the pillar.

The Well-Architected Review assessment has also been refreshed.

Learn More

To learn more, see the new hub page for the Azure Well-Architected Framework: aka.ms/waf

Also check out the guidance of the Cloud Adoption Framework.

Tags: , , , , , , Last modified: November 14, 2023
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