What's new in the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure
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We build the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework collaboratively with our customers, partners, and internal Microsoft Teams. We release new and updated content for the framework as it becomes available. These new releases pose an opportunity for you to test, validate, and refine the Cloud Adoption Framework guidance along with us.
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November 2024
New articles
Monitor a cloud environment: This month, we retired outdated content on cloud monitoring and introduced a new overview that provides comprehensive guidance in a simplified format. Explore the importance of monitoring, the key components of a monitoring strategy, and the tools and services you can use to monitor your cloud environment effectively.
Well-architected considerations for AI workloads on Azure infrastructure (IaaS): Explore the importance of well-architected AI solutions and how to apply the Azure Well-Architected Framework to your AI workloads. Find guidance on reliability, security, cost optimization, operational excellence, and performance efficiency.
Secure methodology refresh
This month, we made significant updates to the Secure methodology. The Secure methodology provides guidance on how to secure your cloud environment and protect your data. The methodology includes the following articles:
Secure overview: Learn about the Secure methodology and how to apply it to secure your cloud environment. Explore the key components of the Secure methodology, including security principles, security controls, and security best practices.
Security teams, roles, and functions: Learn about the key security teams, roles, and functions that are essential for securing your cloud environment.
Plan for a secure cloud adoption: Learn about the key considerations for planning a secure cloud adoption and the tools and services you can use to plan for a secure cloud adoption.
Prepare your secure cloud estate: Find guidance on the key considerations for preparing your secure cloud estate and the tools and services you can use to prepare your cloud estate securely.
Perform your cloud adoption securely: Explore the importance of security in cloud adoption and the key considerations for securely adopting cloud services.
Securely govern your cloud estate: Find guidance on the key considerations for securely governing your cloud estate and the tools and services you can use to securely govern your cloud environment.
Manage your cloud estate with enhanced security: Explore the importance of managing your cloud estate with enhanced security and the key considerations for managing your cloud estate securely.
SAP and Power Platform
We introduced new articles that provide guidance on integrating SAP and Power Platform. Learn how to extend an SAP landing zone to support Power Platform, understand the architecture workflow, and explore the fundamentals of SAP and Power Platform integration.
SAP and Microsoft Power Platform architecture workflow: Find guidance on how to design, deploy, and manage an integrated SAP and Power Platform solution. Explore the key components of the architecture, including SAP systems, Azure services, and Power Platform components.
SAP and Power Platform fundamentals: Explore the fundamentals of integrating SAP and Power Platform. Learn about the benefits of integrating SAP and Power Platform, the key components of the integration, and the architecture considerations for a successful integration.
Updated articles
Azure API Management landing zone accelerator: Find new guidance on generative AI gateway scenarios and how to use them in your API Management landing zone as well as new architecture examples.
Establish Cross-Tenant Network Connectivity for Azure VMware Solution SDDCs: Learn how to establish cross-tenant network connectivity for Azure VMware Solution software-defined datacenters (SDDCs) using Azure Virtual WAN and network virtual appliances (NVAs). Explore connectivity options between SDDCs, Azure, and on-premises environments.
Secure Virtual WAN for Azure VMware Solution in a Single Region or in Dual Regions: Learn how to design secure Virtual WAN topologies for Azure VMware Solution in both single and dual-region scenarios. Learn about routing intent for traffic inspection and explore design considerations for deployments with and without Azure ExpressRoute Global Reach.
Use a Single-Region Azure VMware Solution Design That Has Virtual WAN and Global Reach: Explore best practices for configuring a secure Virtual WAN with routing intent and Azure ExpressRoute Global Reach for a single-region Azure VMware Solution. Find guidance on network connectivity, traffic flows, and the configuration of security solutions in the Virtual WAN hub.
Use a Single-Region Azure VMware Solution Design That Doesn't Have Global Reach: See recommendations for configuring a single-region Azure VMware Solution with secure Virtual WAN and routing intent without using Azure ExpressRoute Global Reach. Find guidance on network connectivity, traffic flows, and security considerations for Azure VMware Solution private clouds, on-premises sites, and Azure-native resources.
New CAF Scenario: AI Adoption on Azure
Establish an AI Center of Excellence: Learn how to create and manage an AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE) to drive AI adoption within an organization. Find guidance on the importance of an AI CoE, defining its functions, building a cross-functional team, structuring operations, and ensuring ongoing monitoring and evolution of AI initiatives.
Recommendations for organizations governing AI workloads in Azure: Learn best practices and recommendations for integrating AI risk management into broader risk management strategies, assessing organizational AI risks, documenting and enforcing AI governance policies, and monitoring AI risks.
Recommendations for managing AI: Learn best practices for managing AI workloads in Azure, including AI operations, deployment, endpoint sharing, model management, cost management, data management, and business continuity. Explore the need for structured practices, continuous monitoring, and adherence to governance standards to ensure effective and reliable AI system management.
Recommendations for organizations planning AI adoption: See guidance on integrating AI into an organization, including assessing and acquiring AI skills, accessing AI resources, prioritizing AI use cases, creating AI proofs of concept, implementing responsible AI practices, and estimating delivery timelines.
Recommendations for organizations building AI workloads in Azure: Explore guidance on establishing reliability, governance, networking, and foundational infrastructure for AI workloads in Azure. Learn best practices for ensuring availability, managing costs, securing networks, and creating scalable environments.
Recommendations for organizations securing AI workloads in Azure: Review guidelines on assessing AI security risks, implementing security controls for AI resources and data, and maintaining these controls through continuous monitoring and updates. Learn about the importance of protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of AI models and data to prevent breaches and ensure compliance.
Compute recommendations: Learn how to select virtual machines, images, and orchestration solutions to optimize AI workloads on Azure. See recommendations for training and inferencing AI models, managing costs, and using containers for scalable AI solutions.
Implementation options: See recommendations for deploying AI workloads using Azure CycleCloud and Slurm. This article covers cluster creation, dynamic management, and infrastructure control, offering guidelines and architecture for efficient AI operations on Azure IaaS.
Governance recommendations: Explore guidelines for managing resources, controlling costs, ensuring security, and maintaining operational consistency for AI workloads on Azure.
Management recommendations: Learn strategies for effectively managing AI workloads on Azure by emphasizing continuous monitoring, optimizing practices, and establishing robust backup and disaster recovery plans.
Networking recommendations: Learn about how to network to optimize bandwidth, minimize latency, and implement high-performance networking for AI workloads on Azure. Explore strategies for resource placement, using proximity placement groups, and utilizing GPU-optimized VMs and InfiniBand for efficient data processing.
Security recommendations: Find guidance on securing Azure services, networks, data, access, and operating systems for AI workloads. Learn how to prioritize encryption, network security, access control, and incident response preparation.
Storage recommendations: Learn how to use different storage options like Azure Managed Lustre, Azure NetApp Files, and local NVMe/SSD-based storage for active data, transferring inactive data to Azure Blob Storage, implementing checkpointing for model training, automating data migration to lower-cost storage tiers, ensuring data consistency, and enabling data versioning for reproducibility.
AI workloads and Azure AI platform services (PaaS)
AI architecture guidance to build AI workloads on Azure: This set of articles provides architecture guidance for building AI workloads on Azure using platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions, including references and guides for both generative and nongenerative AI architectures, as well as recommendations for AI resource selection, networking, governance, management, and security.
Governance recommendations: Find recommendations and best practices for managing, including AI model governance, cost control, platform policies, security measures, operational management, regulatory compliance, and data governance.
Management recommendations: Learn best practices for deployment, model monitoring, operations, data management, and business continuity to ensure effective and secure AI operations.
Networking recommendations: Explore networking recommendations, including how to configure and secure virtual networks, manage connectivity, and implement strategies to protect sensitive AI resources and ensure data integrity and privacy.
Resource selection recommendations: Find guidance on choosing the right Azure AI platform, compute resources, data sources, and processing tools for both generative and nongenerative AI applications.
Security recommendations: Learn security recommendations covering topics such as securing AI resources, models, access, and execution to protect against potential threats and maintain data integrity and compliance.
Updated articles
We made updates to the Azure Landing Zone architecture diagram to reflect guidance for multi-region deployments:
We refreshed the cloud-scale analytics documentation. These updates include modifications to reflect the latest product naming and guidance and to improve clarity and readability. Explore the following articles to learn more:
Responsible and trusted AI adoption: Explore new guidance about how to develop AI responsibly and build safer systems with Azure AI Content Safety. Learn about the importance of responsible AI and the features of the Responsible AI dashboard for Azure Machine Learning.
This month, we introduced new articles that have guidance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on Azure. We also added new articles and made major updates to existing articles for Oracle on Azure IaaS and Oracle Database@Azure. Take a look at the new and updated content to see how you can apply these recommendations in your organization.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure
Azure RHEL landing zone accelerator: Learn how to use the RHEL landing zone accelerator to create a consistent, repeatable, and secure environment deployment. Use the architectural guidance and reference implementation recommendations to accelerate the migration and deployment of RHEL-based workloads to Microsoft Azure.
Identity and access management (IAM) for RHEL: Discover IAM considerations for your RHEL landing zone accelerator deployment. Learn how to carefully design your hybrid cloud IAM implementation to ensure smooth integration and management of your instance landscape in the Azure cloud.
Business continuity and disaster recovery for RHEL: Learn how to improve business continuity and disaster recovery for your RHEL on Azure environment. Explore recommendations that you can use to support RHEL workloads and to deploy RHEL platform-management components.
Network topology and connectivity for RHEL: Learn how to implement design considerations and recommendations for network topology and connectivity in RHEL on Azure infrastructure. See how you can deploy various RHEL platform components and roles on virtual machines (VMs) with specific sizing and redundancy as needed.
Resource organization for RHEL: Learn key tactics for how to choose management groups and subscriptions that will help to ensure that you effectively govern and manage resources for your RHEL deployment.
Security for RHEL: See how you can design your security to target multiple areas to protect your RHEL systems. Learn how to create a secure and resilient cloud environment by implementing a strategic approach that applies both Azure and Red Hat security mechanisms.
Management and monitoring for RHEL: Learn about best practices for effective management and monitoring in your RHEL on Azure infrastructure.
Governance and compliance for RHEL: Learn about design considerations and recommendations for governance and compliance in an RHEL on Azure infrastructure. Discover key tactics for establishing efficient and effective governance and compliance in a cloud environment.
Platform automation for RHEL: Learn about the tools, features, and services you can use to automate various tasks and manage the RHEL lifecycle within your Azure environment. Discover how to implement automation to improve the efficiency and reliability of your RHEL on Azure infrastructure.
Oracle
Oracle on Azure IaaS landing zone accelerator: Learn how you can use the Oracle on Azure IaaS landing zone accelerator to automate the deployment of an environment capable of hosting Oracle on Azure IaaS Virtual Machines. See how the landing zone accelerator can be adapted to produce an architecture that fits your scenario and puts your organization on a path to sustainable scale.
Manage and monitor Oracle Database@Azure: Explore best practices for management and monitoring Oracle Exadata Database Service on a Dedicated Infrastructure with Oracle Database@Azure. Learn about key design considerations for health and metrics monitoring.
Business continuity and disaster recovery for Oracle Database@Azure: Learn about business continuity and disaster recovery for Oracle Database@Azure and how to build a resilient architecture for your workload environment. Discover how you can design your architecture to meet the recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) of your solution.
Establish common subscription vending product lines: Give application teams the flexibility to deliver their workloads and services effectively by offering different subscription vending product lines. Implement subscription vending in your Azure landing zones to establish consistent scaling, security, and governance of Azure environments.
We retired several articles in the Hybrid/Azure Arc scenario in the best practices area. The content was outdated and no longer relevant to the Cloud Adoption Framework.
May 2024
New articles
This month, we introduced a new article related to Azure Virtual Network Manager that has recommendations for networking topologies in Azure landing zones. We also added new articles that have guidance on Oracle Database@Azure. Take a look at the new content to see how you can apply these recommendations in your organization.
Azure Virtual Network Manager
Azure Virtual Network Manager in Azure landing zones: Use Azure's Virtual Network Manager to implement landing zone design principles for application migrations, modernization, and innovation at scale. Learn more about two recommended networking topologies: Azure Virtual WAN and traditional hub-and-spoke. The Virtual Network Manager allows for the expansion and implementation of networking changes as business requirements evolve. See how these changes can be made without disrupting deployed Azure resources.
Oracle Database@Azure
Explore new articles on Oracle Database@Azure.
Introduction to the Oracle on Azure adoption scenario: Learn how to set up and manage Oracle workloads within your Azure landing zone. Learn about specific architectural strategies and implementations for Oracle database systems on Azure.
Identity and access management for Oracle Database@Azure: Learn key tactics for proper identity and access management for Oracle Database@Azure. Deploy your initial Oracle Database@Azure instance to create specific groups within Microsoft Entra ID and in the corresponding tenant. Learn how to use Microsoft Entra administrator groups and how to establish other groups and roles to enhance the granularity of access permissions.
Network topology and connectivity for Oracle on Azure Virtual Machines: Learn about network topology and connectivity considerations for running Oracle on Azure Virtual Machines. Explore the importance of security for Oracle workloads, and receive a high-level network design with various recommendations.
Network topology and connectivity for Oracle Database@Azure: Learn how to set up network topologies and connectivity for Oracle Database@Azure. Explore options for physical placement, learn about the use of virtual machine clusters, and learn the importance of private subnets. See how to configure network security groups and why you should use Azure Firewall to protect your Oracle Database@Azure instance.
Security guidelines for Oracle Database@Azure: Receive design considerations and recommendations for implementing security measures for Oracle Database@Azure. See the importance of a defense-in-depth strategy, which layers multiple defense mechanisms for comprehensive security. This strategy includes strong authentication and authorization frameworks, network security, and encryption of data.
Updated articles
Azure Blueprint deprecation
We made updates to reflect the deprecation of Azure Blueprint.
DevOps considerations: The DevOps technologies list was updated to include bootstrapping and infrastructure as code (IaC) tools.
April 2024
New articles
This month, we completely refreshed articles related to the Migrate and Govern methodologies in the Cloud Adoption Framework. We also added a few articles about Azure landing zones in the Ready methodology. Take a look to make sure you're applying the relevant recommendations.
Migrate methodology refresh
Explore dozens of new and updated articles to guide you through the migration process.
Prepare to migrate your workload
Migrate overview: Learn about the Migrate methodology and how to apply it as you move your workloads to Azure.
Migration preparation checklist: Follow the checklist to plan for migration and to ensure that you have the right resources and tools in place.
Prepare your landing zone for migration: Make sure you understand what you need to do after an Azure landing zone deployment to ensure that the technical environment supports migrations.
Align roles and responsibilities: Ensure clarity and coverage of essential functions for the migration to Azure by aligning roles and responsibilities across the departments in your organization.
Evaluate workload readiness: Understand how to adjust your workload to prepare it for migration to the cloud. Learn how to validate all assets and associated dependencies.
Remediate assets prior to migration: Before the migration, remediate assets that you determine to be incompatible with your chosen cloud provider prior.
Replicate assets in a cloud migration: Make sure that you understand the role of replication in the migration process and how to plan for the prerequisites and risks of replication activities.
We overhauled our collection of articles in the Govern methodology, making the concepts easier to consume and understand as you set up cloud governance in your organization.
Govern overview: Learn about the Govern methodology and follow the checklist to apply the methodology in your organization.
Improve landing zone governance: Improve the governance of your landing zones by following the best practices in this article.
Build a cloud governance team: Create a team that works to ensure the success of cloud governance in your organization.
Monitor cloud governance: Measure how well your cloud environment complies with your cloud governance policies.
Ready methodology
Find new articles about Azure landing zones in the Ready methodology.
Keep your Azure landing zone up to date: Make sure that your Azure landing zones are current to maintain improved security, avoid platform configuration drift, and stay optimized for new feature releases.
Update Azure landing zone custom policies: Update your Azure landing zone custom policies to ensure that they're current and compliant with the latest Azure policies.
Updated articles
Cloud adoption scenarios: Extensive revisions help you find scenarios that are relevant to your organization's cloud adoption journey.
Application identity and access management: Learn about recommendations that application owners and developers can use to design the identity and access management for cloud-native applications.
Updated articles
Hybrid identity with Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID in Azure landing zones: We updated this article to include information about how to design and implement Microsoft Entra ID and hybrid identity for Azure landing zones. Microsoft Entra ID is a cloud-based identity and access management service that provides robust capabilities to manage users and groups. You can use it as a standalone identity solution or integrate it with a Microsoft Entra Domain Services infrastructure or an on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) infrastructure.
Landing zone identity and access management: Find out about considerations and recommendations for implementing identity and access control within Azure application and platform landing zones. This article has extensive new content.
Azure identity and access management design area: Learn about the identity and access management design area, which provides best practices to establish the foundation of your public cloud architecture. This article has extensive new content.
Cloud adoption journey: Learn about various types of cloud adoption journeys, including when to retire, replace, rearchitect, rebuild, rehost, or replatform your solution.
Define a sovereignty strategy: Organizations that use cloud services can find guidance for meeting the sovereignty requirements for their countries/regions. We also updated several articles with sovereignty considerations, which you'll find under the "Updated articles" section for this month.
Advanced Azure Policy management: Find out how to manage Azure Policy at scale by using the Enterprise Policy as Code (EPAC) open-source project and integrating IaC into your environment.
Updated articles
Plan for IP addressing: We added information about IPv6 considerations. Find recommendations to help you plan for IPv6 and implement it in your existing Azure networks.
In the following articles, find updated guidance about workload discovery processes that help you understand the many dimensions involved in migrating a workload. You can use that information to help you effectively migrate cloud workloads to another region.