Well Architected Review

Well-Architected Review

Purpose

Perform a structured assessment of Azure resources against the five pillars of the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework. Produce a scored report with prioritized recommendations.

When to use this skill

• User asks "are we following best practices?"
• User asks for a WAF or Well-Architected review
• User wants to assess architecture quality before a launch or audit
• Periodic (quarterly) architecture health check

Pillars and checks

1. Reliability

Run the following checks and report findings:

1. Availability design: Check if critical workloads use availability zones or availability sets

   az vm list --query "[].{name:name, zones:zones, availabilitySet:availabilitySet.id}" -o table
   az appservice plan list --query "[].{name:name, zoneRedundant:zoneRedundant, sku:sku.name}" -o table
   

2. Backup coverage: Verify Recovery Services vaults and backup policies exist for VMs, databases, and file shares

   az backup vault list -o table
   

   Then for each vault:

   az backup item list --vault-name <vault> --resource-group <rg> --backup-management-type AzureIaasVM -o table
   

3. Disaster recovery: Check for paired regions, ASR replication, or geo-redundant storage
4. Health probes: Verify App Service health checks, load balancer probes, and Container Apps health endpoints
5. Auto-healing: Check if App Service auto-heal rules or AKS pod disruption budgets are configured

2. Security

1. Identity: Check for managed identities vs. stored credentials

   az webapp identity show --name <app> --resource-group <rg>
   az ad app list --query "[].{name:displayName, passwordCredentials:passwordCredentials}" -o table
   

2. Network isolation: Check for private endpoints, NSGs, and service endpoints

   az network private-endpoint list -o table
   az network nsg list -o table
   

3. Encryption: Verify encryption at rest (storage, databases) and in transit (TLS)
4. Key management: Check Key Vault usage and key/secret expiration dates

   az keyvault list -o table
   az keyvault secret list --vault-name <vault> --query "[].{name:name, expires:attributes.expires}" -o table
   

5. Defender for Cloud: Check Secure Score and outstanding recommendations

3. Cost Optimization

1. Rightsizing: Identify underutilized VMs (CPU < 5% average over 14 days)
2. Orphaned resources: Find unattached disks, unused public IPs, empty resource groups

   az disk list --query "[?managedBy==null].{name:name, size:diskSizeGb, rg:resourceGroup}" -o table
   az network public-ip list --query "[?ipConfiguration==null].{name:name, rg:resourceGroup}" -o table
   

3. Reservations: Check if high-usage resources could benefit from reserved instances
4. Dev/Test pricing: Verify non-production workloads use Dev/Test subscriptions or B-series VMs
5. Storage tiers: Check if cool/archive tiers are used for infrequently accessed data

4. Operational Excellence

1. IaC coverage: Check for ARM/Bicep/Terraform templates in connected repos
2. Tagging: Verify mandatory tags (environment, owner, cost-center) exist

   az resource list --query "[?tags.environment==null].{name:name, type:type, rg:resourceGroup}" -o table
   

3. Monitoring: Check for alert rules, action groups, and diagnostic settings

   az monitor metrics alert list -o table
   az monitor diagnostic-settings list --resource <id> -o table
   

4. Deployment practices: Check for deployment slots, blue-green, or canary configurations
5. Automation: Check for runbooks, Logic Apps, or scheduled tasks for routine operations

5. Performance Efficiency

1. Autoscaling: Verify autoscale rules exist for App Service plans, VMSS, and Container Apps

   az monitor autoscale list --resource-group <rg> -o table
   

   Note: az monitor autoscale list requires --resource-group. Iterate over relevant resource groups, or use Azure Resource Graph:

   az graph query -q "resources | where type == 'microsoft.insights/autoscalesettings'" -o table
   

2. Caching: Check for Redis Cache or CDN usage on high-traffic workloads
3. Database performance: Check DTU/vCore utilization, index recommendations
4. Content delivery: Verify static assets use CDN or Front Door
5. Connection pooling: Check for connection string patterns suggesting missing pooling

Scoring model

For each check, assign one of:

• ✅ Pass — follows best practice
• ⚠️ Needs attention — partially implemented or at risk
• ❌ Fail — not implemented, risk exposure

Accepted exceptions (optional)

If the user provides a list of accepted exceptions, do not flag those items. Instead, note them in the report as Accepted Exception with the reason provided.

Example format the user may provide:

When exceptions are provided:

• Skip the flagged checks in scoring
• List them in a separate "Accepted Exceptions" section at the end of the report
• Recalculate the overall score excluding excepted checks

Expected output

Report header (mandatory — use this exact format)

Well-Architected Review Report

Summary

A table with pillar scores:

Detailed findings

For each pillar, list every check with:

• Status (pass/attention/fail)
• Evidence (command output or observation)
• Recommendation (specific action to take)
• Priority (Critical / High / Medium / Low)
• Reference link to WAF documentation

Top 5 recommendations

Ordered by impact, with estimated effort (hours/days) for each.

Remediation guidance

For each ❌ or ⚠️ finding, include in the output:

1. The specific az CLI command to remediate (suggest only — do not execute)
2. Use GetAzCliHelp to validate the command syntax before suggesting
3. The official Microsoft Learn documentation link for the remediation

References

• WAF Overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/
• Reliability: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/reliability/
• Security: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/security/
• Cost Optimization: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/cost-optimization/
• Operational Excellence: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/operational-excellence/
• Performance Efficiency: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/performance-efficiency/

Sample output

The following is a redacted example of what the report looks like when run against a subscription.

Well-Architected Review Report

Summary

Detailed findings (sample)

Reliability

Security

Top 5 recommendations

Remediation guidance (sample)

# Enable availability zones on VM (redeploy required)
az vm create --name vm-web-01 --resource-group rg-app-prod --zone 1 ...

# Disable public access on SQL Server
az sql server update --name sql-contoso-prod --resource-group rg-data-prod --set publicNetworkAccess="Disabled"

# Add autoscale rule to App Service plan
az monitor autoscale create --resource-group rg-app-prod --resource asp-prod --resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms --min-count 2 --max-count 10 --count 2