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A deployed solution must evolve to remain secure, cost-effective, and performant. Post-deployment optimization ensures that the workload continues to meet business and technical requirements as usage patterns change.
Fine-tune service configurations
Apply Azure Advisor recommendations. Azure Advisor analyzes workload monitoring data and provides actionable recommendations across cost, performance, reliability, and security. Review the recommendations weekly and implement critical changes first. Access Azure Advisor from the Azure portal and filter recommendations by workload or resource group.
Implement service-specific optimization settings. Use the Well-Architected Framework's (WAF) Azure services guides to align configurations with best practices. This guidance helps ensure workloads are optimized for Azure
Address security findings immediately. Post-deployment, keep a close eye on security posture. Use tools like Microsoft Defender for Cloud to identify any security misconfigurations, missing updates, or compliance issues. Fix security gaps as soon as they’re discovered to protect the workload and maintain compliance. Security isn't a one-time activity task. Continuous monitoring and quick mitigation are key to safe cloud operations.
Validate operational readiness
An operationally ready solution can meet real-world demands and recover from failures. This validation ensures that monitoring, cost controls, and backup procedures function as intended after deployment.
Verify monitoring completeness and accuracy
Enable logging and metrics for all critical components. Confirm that Azure Monitor and any other tools collect logs and metrics from every essential service. Ensure diagnostic settings are configured to send data to Log Analytics, Event Hubs, or Storage Accounts as needed.
Test alerting functionality. Simulate failure scenarios or performance thresholds to verify that alerts trigger correctly. For example, induce a CPU spike or application error and confirm that alerts notify the appropriate teams.
Review dashboards for relevance and clarity. Ensure dashboards reflect the current architecture and provide actionable insights. Include key performance indicators (KPIs), health metrics, and service dependencies.
Document monitoring coverage. Maintain a record of what each alert and dashboard monitors. This documentation supports future audits and onboarding.
For more information, see Monitor Azure.
Establish cost monitoring and optimize costs
Solution costs require continuous monitoring and optimization. Microsoft Cost Management provides tools to track actual expenses against budgets and identify cost optimization opportunities.
Monitor costs with automated alerts. Set up cost alerts and budgets in Azure to receive notifications when spending approaches defined thresholds. Compare actual costs against initial estimates to identify variances and adjust future planning. Review cost data weekly to catch unexpected spending patterns early.
Apply cost optimization best practices systematically. Use the Well-Architected Framework cost optimization guides to implement proven strategies for reducing expenses while maintaining performance and reliability.
Category Guide Description Cost monitoring Collect and review cost data Establish processes for gathering and analyzing cost information Cost governance Set spending guardrails Implement controls to prevent cost overruns Rates Optimize rates Secure better pricing through reservations and agreements Usage Align usage to billing increments Match resource consumption to billing cycles Components Optimize component costs Right-size individual Azure services Environment Optimize environment costs Reduce expenses across development and production environments Flow Optimize flow costs Minimize data transfer and processing expenses Data Optimize data costs Reduce storage and data processing costs Code Optimize code costs Improve application efficiency to reduce resource consumption Scaling Optimize scaling costs Balance performance and cost during scale operations Operations Optimize personnel time Reduce manual operational overhead Consolidation Consolidate resource usage Combine resources to achieve better utilization rates Review and act on cost recommendations regularly. Analyze resource utilization patterns to identify underused or idle resources. Decommission unnecessary resources and resize overprovisioned services based on actual usage data. Schedule nonproduction environments to shut down during off-hours to reduce costs.
Test backup and recovery procedures
Confirm backup coverage and schedule for all critical data. Use Azure Backup or your selected solution to protect every essential data store. Review backup configurations to ensure they meet recovery point objectives (RPOs) and retention policies. Validate that backup jobs complete successfully and cover all required resources.
Perform trial restores in a nonproduction environment. Trial restores verify that backup data is intact and that the restore process meets recovery time objectives (RTOs). Use a staging environment to test restore operations without affecting production workloads. Document any issues and update procedures to address gaps.
Document infrastructure and data recovery procedures. Create step-by-step instructions for redeploying infrastructure from code and restoring data from backups. Include dependencies, credentials, and configuration details. Store documentation in a secure and accessible location for operational teams.
Conduct disaster recovery drills regularly. Schedule and rehearse recovery scenarios to validate team readiness and ensure procedures remain accurate. Use simulated failure events to test the full recovery workflow, including infrastructure redeployment and data restoration. Update documentation based on drill outcomes.
For more information, see Manage business continuity.
Collect user feedback and measure outcomes
Gather structured user feedback regularly. Establish channels for users to provide input on the solution’s performance, reliability, and usability. For instance, you could send out a Microsoft Forms survey to end users or internal users after launch and then on a periodic basis. Also pay attention to support tickets or helpdesk calls related to the new solution. Categorize and tally them to spot recurring pain points. Focus on feedback around business-critical workflows. If users find a particular process slow or cumbersome, that’s valuable insight. Regular feedback loops ensure you’re hearing about issues or praise directly from users.
Track and resolve feedback systematically. Treat feedback items as work items in your development backlog. Use Azure DevOps or GitHub Issues (or your project management tool of choice) to log each piece of feedback or reported issue. Prioritize them by value and urgency. For example, a bug preventing order submissions is critical, whereas a minor UI suggestion is lower priority. Assign owners to investigate and resolve feedback items, and set target dates for resolution. By managing feedback like any other requirement, you ensure it gets triaged and not lost. Close the loop by updating or informing the stakeholders when you act upon the feedback. This process shows users that their input is valued and leads to tangible improvements.
Measure and communicate the business outcomes. Now that the solution has been in use, quantify the benefits it delivers. Gather key metrics that align with the original objectives. For example, document increased number of transactions per day, reduced page load times, and reduced cost compared to the old system. Use Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and cost reports to get this data. Compile before-and-after comparisons to illustrate improvements. Then regularly share these results with business stakeholders and the broader team. Demonstrating measurable outcomes not only proves the project’s value but also helps justify future investment in further enhancements.
Continue to evolve and improve
Schedule periodic workload reviews. Periodically, revisit the architecture of the solution in light of the Well-Architected Framework’s five pillars. As your usage patterns or business requirements change, certain design decisions might need revisiting. Perform a Well-Architected Review to identify any areas for improvement. Document any findings and create action items for things to optimize or refactor in the next cycle. Regular reviews help catch drift from best practices and keep the system aligned with current needs.
Automated optimization where possible. Look for opportunities to use automation to manage and optimize the solution. For example, use Azure Policy to enforce tagging, security configurations, or resource sizing standards on new deployments so they always remain optimized. Set up autoscaling rules to handle changes in load without manual intervention. Use cost anomaly detection in Microsoft Cost Management to automatically alert if spending spikes unexpectedly. By letting Azure’s automation features handle routine optimizations (like shutting down unused virtual machines on a schedule), your team can focus on higher-level improvements. Automation ensures consistency and can react faster than human intervention for many operational adjustments.
Share lessons and best practices. Capture what you learned from this cloud-native build and share it with other teams in your organization. For instance, if you developed an effective pattern for blue-green deployments or a useful script for seeding test data, make it available for others. Document the successes and pitfalls encountered during the project as internal case studies. This effort might involve creating a short post-mortem or project retrospective document that highlights what went well and what could be better next time. Contribute updates to your organization’s cloud adoption framework or playbooks so that the next projects can build on your experience. By fostering knowledge sharing, you help improve cloud practices across the organization and drive overall cloud maturity forward.