Cloud Architecture Checklist

For each topic, need to answer to : What ? Why ? How ?

Integration

• App datas flow :
  • From / to
  • Who initiate the connectivity ?
• "In App" Users :
  • Users provisionnning & management (= users I/O)
  • Authentication management (IdP, delegation)
• Process & tools for the developers (code repo, tools, CI, CD, CM...)
• Process & tools for the ops (monitoring / CM, backup, enforced / desired configuration...)
• Others relationship to on-premise / other apps

Security

App-level security

• Code security
• 3rd parties lib security
• Security in DevOps

Cloud setup & run Users

• Access, rights / roles, limits
• Policies

Encryption

• datas in compute
• datas in transit
• datas at rest

Key Management

• Key Vault
• Managed identities / SPN to access to Key Vault
• Least privileges on these identities ?

Environments & Network => identify & protect endpoints

• Workload isolation
• env management
• Public endpoint filtering / access
• Layer 7 filtering (WAF...)
• Layer 3/4 filtering
• Network link with on-premise / other networks

Performances & Availability

• Performance management :
  • Objectives on performance :
    • Right-sizing / Pricing tier
    • CDN
    • Multi-region...
    • Network bandwith :
      • App requests (either from UI or API)
        • average page size
        • peak time : load, length
        • ...
      • DB transactions
      • Messaging requests
      • Authentication requests
    • Network latency
  • Cloud pattern & Anti-pattern
• Availability, Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) management
  • SLA on uptime :
    • High Availability (HA) management
    • Reducing the downtime
  • Definition of RPO & RTO
  • Multi-region / multi-sites deployment (even global deployment)
  • Backup & restore policies (targeting the RPO)
  • Network availability

Governance

• Organization :
  • Impact on people overall
  • Impact on specific teams (delivery) - skill debts
  • Impact on processes
  • Impact on culture
• Timeline
• Work-load / FTE / People for delivery (any WBS ?)
• Any organization constraints (hybrid, reversibility...)
• Definition of the Azure provider (direct, through SI ?)
• Billing consideration / chargeback requirements
• Licencing management
• Costing & optimization :
  • Public pricing
  • RIs
  • scaling (up/down, in/out)
  • auto-shutdown / auto-start
  • Engineering on SLA
  • Right-sizing
  • Right-region / Compliance and regulatory requirements