Cloud Adoption Framework: Your Guide to Azure Success

The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) provides comprehensive guidance for cloud adoption. Let’s explore how to apply CAF principles to accelerate your Azure journey.

CAF Methodology

The framework consists of several phases:

1. Strategy - Define business justification
2. Plan - Create adoption plan
3. Ready - Prepare environment
4. Adopt - Migrate or innovate
5. Govern - Implement governance
6. Manage - Manage operations

Strategy Phase

Document your cloud strategy:

# cloud-strategy.yaml
business_outcomes:
  - name: "Reduce operational costs"
    metric: "30% reduction in infrastructure costs"
    timeline: "12 months"

  - name: "Improve time to market"
    metric: "50% faster deployment cycles"
    timeline: "6 months"

  - name: "Enable innovation"
    metric: "3 new cloud-native applications"
    timeline: "18 months"

motivations:
  - cost_savings
  - scalability
  - business_agility
  - modernization

current_state:
  total_workloads: 150
  data_centers: 2
  annual_it_spend: 5000000
  on_premises_percentage: 80

target_state:
  cloud_percentage: 70
  on_premises_percentage: 20
  hybrid_percentage: 10

Plan Phase - Digital Estate Assessment

# Assess current workloads
$assessment = @()

Get-AzVM | ForEach-Object {
    $vm = $_
    $metrics = Get-AzMetric -ResourceId $vm.Id -MetricName "Percentage CPU" -TimeGrain 01:00:00 -StartTime (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)

    $assessment += [PSCustomObject]@{
        Name = $vm.Name
        Size = $vm.HardwareProfile.VmSize
        Location = $vm.Location
        AvgCPU = ($metrics.Data | Measure-Object -Property Average -Average).Average
        MigrationComplexity = if ($vm.StorageProfile.DataDisks.Count -gt 5) { "High" } else { "Medium" }
    }
}

# Categorize workloads
$assessment | ForEach-Object {
    $_.RecommendedAction = switch ($true) {
        ($_.AvgCPU -lt 5) { "Retire/Decommission" }
        ($_.AvgCPU -lt 20) { "Right-size then Migrate" }
        ($_.MigrationComplexity -eq "High") { "Rearchitect" }
        default { "Rehost (Lift and Shift)" }
    }
}

$assessment | Export-Csv "workload-assessment.csv"

Ready Phase - Landing Zone Deployment

// landing-zone-ready.bicep
targetScope = 'subscription'

param environment string
param location string = 'australiaeast'

// Core resource groups
var resourceGroups = [
  'rg-networking-${environment}'
  'rg-security-${environment}'
  'rg-management-${environment}'
  'rg-workloads-${environment}'
]

resource rgs 'Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups@2021-04-01' = [for name in resourceGroups: {
  name: name
  location: location
  tags: {
    environment: environment
    framework: 'CAF'
  }
}]

// Networking foundation
module networking 'modules/networking.bicep' = {
  name: 'networking-deployment'
  scope: resourceGroup('rg-networking-${environment}')
  params: {
    location: location
    environment: environment
  }
  dependsOn: [rgs]
}

// Security baseline
module security 'modules/security.bicep' = {
  name: 'security-deployment'
  scope: resourceGroup('rg-security-${environment}')
  params: {
    location: location
  }
  dependsOn: [rgs]
}

// Management services
module management 'modules/management.bicep' = {
  name: 'management-deployment'
  scope: resourceGroup('rg-management-${environment}')
  params: {
    location: location
  }
  dependsOn: [rgs]
}

Govern Phase - Policy Implementation

// governance/caf-policies.bicep
targetScope = 'managementGroup'

// Cost management policies
resource budgetPolicy 'Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions@2021-06-01' = {
  name: 'require-budget'
  properties: {
    displayName: 'Require budget on subscriptions'
    mode: 'All'
    policyRule: {
      if: {
        field: 'type'
        equals: 'Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions'
      }
      then: {
        effect: 'auditIfNotExists'
        details: {
          type: 'Microsoft.Consumption/budgets'
          existenceCondition: {
            field: 'Microsoft.Consumption/budgets/amount'
            greater: 0
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

// Security policies
resource securityPolicySet 'Microsoft.Authorization/policySetDefinitions@2021-06-01' = {
  name: 'caf-security-baseline'
  properties: {
    displayName: 'CAF Security Baseline'
    policyDefinitions: [
      {
        policyDefinitionId: '/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/a451c1ef-c6ca-483d-87ed-f49761e3ffb5'  // Audit VMs without managed disks
      }
      {
        policyDefinitionId: '/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/404c3081-a854-4457-ae30-26a93ef643f9'  // Secure transfer for storage
      }
      {
        policyDefinitionId: '/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/9daedab3-fb2d-461e-b861-71790eead4f6'  // TDE on SQL databases
      }
    ]
  }
}

Manage Phase - Operations Baseline

// management/operations-baseline.bicep
param location string

resource logAnalytics 'Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces@2021-12-01-preview' = {
  name: 'log-caf-operations'
  location: location
  properties: {
    sku: {
      name: 'PerGB2018'
    }
    retentionInDays: 90
  }
}

resource actionGroup 'Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups@2022-06-01' = {
  name: 'ag-operations'
  location: 'global'
  properties: {
    enabled: true
    groupShortName: 'ops-alerts'
    emailReceivers: [
      {
        name: 'Operations Team'
        emailAddress: 'ops@company.com'
      }
    ]
  }
}

// VM availability alert
resource vmAlert 'Microsoft.Insights/metricAlerts@2018-03-01' = {
  name: 'alert-vm-availability'
  location: 'global'
  properties: {
    severity: 1
    enabled: true
    scopes: [subscription().id]
    evaluationFrequency: 'PT5M'
    windowSize: 'PT15M'
    criteria: {
      'odata.type': 'Microsoft.Azure.Monitor.MultipleResourceMultipleMetricCriteria'
      allOf: [
        {
          name: 'vm-availability'
          metricName: 'VmAvailabilityMetric'
          dimensions: []
          operator: 'LessThan'
          threshold: 1
          timeAggregation: 'Average'
          criterionType: 'StaticThresholdCriterion'
        }
      ]
    }
    actions: [
      {
        actionGroupId: actionGroup.id
      }
    ]
  }
}

The Cloud Adoption Framework provides a structured approach to cloud adoption, ensuring you address all critical aspects of your journey to Azure.