>> Learn about the Cloud Adoption Framework,
Azure Landing Zones,
and Well-Architected Framework or WAF.
Get a deep dive on WAF,
and how you can get started and take
advantage of the resources available today.
This week on Data Exposed.
[MUSIC]
>> Hi. I'm Anna Hoffman,
and welcome to this episode of Data Exposed,
the SQL insider series.
Today I'm joined by Sergey,
who is a Cloud Solution Architect focusing on SQL,
but all sorts of things, I believe.
Sergey, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
>> Hi Anna. Thank you very much for having me on the show.
I'm a Senior Cloud Solution Architect with Data and AI team,
specifically focusing on our SQL Server products
and Arc-enabled data services.
>> Awesome, cool. It's great to have you on the show.
For folks who haven't seen the SQL insider series,
this is with folks who are really
closely with customers and see a lot
of the issues that they face,
and know a lot of the ways to go
around that and the best practices and all that great stuff.
So it's great to have you on the series.
Today we're going to be talking about Well-Architected.
I hear a lot about the Cloud Adoption Framework, CAF,
Azure Landing Zones as well as the Well-Architected Framework,
W-A-F, sometimes called WAF.
These are all good things. But can you tell us what's
the difference and how we should think about them?
>> Anna than you very much, this is a fantastic question.
I think if innocent we're much short of best practices,
good patterns in our guidance.
I have a few slides with me,
so what I will do is I'll share my screen
and just go for some nice pictures,
some presentations just to give you a little bit,
a distinction between those guidance in the frameworks.
Let's start from the citizenship in the Cloud.
Cloud Adoption Framework is a framework as it states,
and that's really what it is,
it's a set of guidance documentations that helps you to envision,
plan, and deploy something in the Cloud.
You want to become a citizen in the Cloud,
you want to build some signal,
we've got a whole bunch of the blueprints,
we have the guidance,
we have recommendations,
we will tell you-all about how to build;
what roles you need, what people you need.
Just like building an ordinary house,
you want to build the house,
that's what you need.
We call it the Cloud Adoption Framework
because you want to move in the Cloud.
The second option we have is something called Azure Landing Zone,
just like you have as model houses today,
we have pre-built modules,
we have a templates,
some sense that helps you build it faster,
build it more appropriate to
your codes or to the partners or to the practices.
Some sensor test specifically sometimes
meet the demands of your industry where you are.
This is our Azure Landing Zones.
Our Azure Landing Zone is designed to
accelerate your ability to deliver and deploy,
but also observing all the security regulations,
privacy policies, and of course,
best practices from our deployments.
Now here's the key question,
isn't enough for me alone having
a Well-Architected Framework? What's that all about?
Well-Architected Framework is actually,
believe it or not, is some sense of [inaudible] all up together.
Because what the Well-Architected Framework it is?
Is actually asking you the most critical question.
Did you actually build what you wanted to build?
Does it actually work?
Does it perform? Does it scale?
Is my solution secure?
How complex is to support it,
like general actual operated,
and how much this all will cost.
Just to give a little bit
explanation when we actually going to use the WAF is,
WAFs could be used everywhere.
What we mentioned before when you want to build a new project,
typically, when you're building new house,
without the Cloud Adoption Framework,
but you still want to understand,
do you have any known limitations or internal company inhibitors.
Some sense that prevent you from
building exactly what you want and that's
where Microsoft Well-Architected Framework
could be executed to assess your current situation.
Well-Architected Framework could be
done after completion of the building solution.
Because what happens is as you are
building you need some times to adjust,
you need to change something
and at the end of the time when you build it,
you want to understand what you actually built,
like what I mentioned before,
what unknown things that I
have right now that I need to accommodate.
Of course, just like we always telling our kids,
turn off the water and turn off the lights,
once you move in the Cloud,
you need to make sure that you
operate well, you need to maintain,
sometimes in your typical house,
you need to change stuff so that in your house doesn't leak.
WAF is incremental and incorporated supposed to
be in every single day of your existence in the Cloud.
>> Got it. This is super useful,
just to understand the different frameworks
and to understand more about WAF,
and also to understand that people say WAF,
they don't just say, Well-Architected,
you might hear them say WAF, and that's what they mean.
But let's say a customer who who wanted to
get started with WAF today,
what tools and resources are available for that?
>> Absolutely. So here I will go to
my magic deck of cards with my slides.
But what happens is that yes.
We do have a variations of the tool and we're still evolving.
The next slide I will present is what we actually have.
Two major tools we have with
Well-Architected Framework is assessments and Azure Advisor.
What you're seeing on the screen is something that we call
Well-Architected Framework for data estate assessment.
We do have more assessments and we provide you the link,
but in this particular presentation we'll just cover
data services for Well-Architected Framework for Data Services.
When you access in the link, what you will see is,
you can actually access and perform assessment,
if you sign-in, you will be able to save it.
Why is it important?
Because when you're going through the assessment
initially and you find out about it, you can save it,
later on you can do adjustment,
you can do some mitigation of
the issues and you can actually save it as well.
You can see the progress,
how you're maturing or how you're addressing certain issues.
When you're going through the assessment,
you will be presented with a number of
the services like right down the screen,
you will be highlighting
some SQL options like SQL DB, [inaudible] or VM,
you can do individual service,
you can do a group
of services if you're doing assessments for the solutions,
and then you have ability to review different five point.
As you know in Well-Architected Framework,
we have five pillars,
which is the security, performance, reliability,
operational excellence, and cost.
You can perform assessments,
again sole pillars those that you selected.
Of course, at the end we give you
a score where we're pointing out to you,
where you're still during good,
where there's a room for improvements,
and once you save the score,
this is actually a road map and pass for you to go forward.
Just to illustrate to you,
I will show what the advisor score looks like,
previously we saw assessment.
Everybody perpetuity formula with
Azure Advisor at this point on and especially
peoples that are not new Cloud [inaudible] But what you will see,
you may not realize is that what
you see on the screen today is already being
adjusted using Well-Architectured Framework
because the exactly five pillars that you see in the Advisor,
is the five pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.
>> Got it. That's pretty cool.
I was not aware of any of that.
It's actually great to see the connection between WAF,
and Azure Advisor,
I didn't know that.
>> What happens is,
if you think about when you're going through the assessment,
it's more of a verbal where we're asking,
do you follow best practices?
Do you follow the recommendations?
It's little bit subjective because you can
check mark it or you may not check mark it.
By the way, Well-Architected Framework assessment
is available to everybody.
So we're providing link with this presentation,
and people can just go try and play with that.
Now, Advisor signals,
actually is something that shows you
the reality and what we're looking for and
hopefully we will continue to improve
this functionality where we will be able to go and say hey,
here's the reality, tell us what you think.
What we want to do is we want to bring it together,
is it your understanding,
what you have of your operational aspects or your requirements or
your challenges is identical or close
enough to what we see with the Advisor scores,
and two of them together basically gives us bringing the reality
with what we're thinking or what we want to
achieve through this approach.
>> Got it. So is this where Microsoft can come in and maybe
help some customers with
adoption or a hands-on implementation of WAF?
>> Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much Anna.
This is actually one of the very interesting questions
because while Well-Architected concept
exists in the industry for a while,
sometimes it leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
What we can do is Microsoft can bring its own specialists.
I'm coming from a data estate,
so I absolutely will recommend because one of
the most expensive services in the Cloud
are analytics and data services.
Making sure that you have a control
and proper usage, operational cycles,
cost perspective,
security perspective because we all deal with data's,
there is a lot of regulations and requirements around the data.
Bringing Microsoft specialist,
bringing Microsoft architects or
engineers helping review and help you to
deliver the first version of
the Well-Architected Framework and indicate you how to do it,
how to run it on a consistent basis
because Well-Architected Framework is not one time off,
it's a program, it's a way of living in the Cloud.
We need to engage your Microsoft Cloud team
and Microsoft account team will come back and they
will engage appropriate architects that
will come over and deliver Well-Architected Framework assessment.
>> Awesome, cool. Thanks so much
Sergey for coming on Data Exposed.
I learned a lot personally about the frameworks,
about WAF and about how to get
started and where I can go learn more.
To our viewers, we'll put some links in the description,
leave us a comment and let us know what you think
of WAF and the other frameworks,
and we hope to see you next time on Data Exposed. [MUSIC]