Leveraging the Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework

The truth is anyone can move to the cloud. However, building a well-structured Azure environment that’s optimised for your business can be tricky. That’s why Microsoft has created two best practice frameworks to support your organisation in getting to the cloud, and leveraging it once it’s there. These frameworks are known as the Cloud Adoption Framework and Azure Well-Architected Framework.

If you’re looking to follow best practices for adopting and optimising Azure, then look no further. In this blog, we’ll be diving into what the Cloud Adoption Framework and Azure Well-Architected Framework are, how they work together, and how you can put them to use.

Cloud Adoption Framework

The Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) is a collection of proven documentation, implementation guidance, best practices, and tools from Microsoft designed to help businesses move to Azure with confidence. This framework should be used by businesses that are looking to migrate to Azure and want to create a highly optimised environment from the get-go.

There are six stages to the CAF, and each stage has been crafted to help you accelerate your cloud adoption journey. The six stages of the Cloud Adoption Framework are:

1. Strategy: Start by understanding your business objectives to identify how Azure can support them
2. Plan: Align your people, processes and technology to map your cloud migration plan
3. Ready: Prepare your environment and start deploying your first landing zone
4. Adopt: During this stage, you can either migrate your on-prem environment to the cloud or innovate your digital estate leveraging cloud-native technologies
5. Govern: Create benchmarks and implement a governance minimum variable product to help you stay on track
6. Manage: Monitor your environment through data collection and alerts to ensure you’re following best practices

Think of the CAF framework as your guide to navigating your cloud migration.

Learn more in our Beginners Guide to the Cloud Adoption Framework.

Azure Well-Architected Framework

The Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework provides technical guidance specifically at the workload level across five different pillars; cost optimisation, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and operational excellence. Aligning to the Azure Well-Architected Framework will allow you to build highly optimised Azure infrastructure.

This framework should be used by businesses that are looking to optimise their cloud investment and ensure they’re aligning to best practices.

Think of the WAF framework as your guide to maximising your Azure investment. If you’re in Azure, there’s no excuse to not be following the WAF.

Learn more in our blog post, The Five Pillars of the Azure-Well Architected Framework.

So how do the Cloud Adoption Framework and the Azure Well-Architected Framework work together?

These two frameworks can be used at various points of your cloud journey to help maximise your Azure investment. In short, the Azure Well-Architected Framework helps you optimise a specific Azure workload, and the Cloud Adoption Framework is your reference point for migrating to the cloud according to best practices.

If you’re new to the cloud, then you should begin by leveraging the Cloud Adoption Framework. The six stages Microsoft has identified are crucial to ensuring you have a successful migration. It’s important that you really focus on building an effective plan and strategy before migrating.

Once you’ve migrated or built an application in the cloud, it’s time to start looking at the Azure Well-Architected Framework. Microsoft carefully crafted these five pillars to guide you in creating optimised workloads in Azure.

If you’re already in Azure and want to explore how to continue your cloud journey, then check out our Assessments & Workshops page. Whether you’re looking to optimise your current cloud environment, strengthen your security practice, or look towards an AI future, we have the assessments and the expertise to light the way.