A while back I did a blog post titled: “Is Azure Adoption Too Easy”. That title raised a few eyebrows.

Let me be perfectly clear; I have been working with Azure since before it was called Azure. I discovered it when it was an internal project at Microsoft and immediately knew what I wanted to specialize in. Azure is in my blood. I founded the Nashville Microsoft Azure Users Group with four members two weeks after I moved to Nashville. Now we have over 1,400 registered members.

That blog post was just to emphasize how easy it is to throw something up into Azure, take all the defaults and get it running without a lot of planning. There is nothing wrong with that approach for initial experimentation. However; a production implementation requires planning and planning requires the implementation of good Governance.

The Business Dictionary defines Governance as “Establishment of policies, and continuous monitoring of their proper implementation, by the members of the governing body of an organization. It includes the mechanisms required to balance the powers of the members (with the associated accountability), and their primary duty of enhancing the prosperity and viability of the organization.”.

Good Azure Governance requires up-front planning. Microsoft has done an excellent job of defining Azure components and services to support it. To be successful in Azure companies have to be pro-active in adopting those Azure features. I spend a lot of my time presenting on these topics at Planet Technologies Azure workshops that we give for our clients to insure that they adopt Azure the right way.

For those of you who are in the Nashville area we will focus on Azure Governance at the January 16th meeting of the Nashville Microsoft Azure Users Group. Join us if you can.

Bill Zack, Azure Architect