An extensive range of services, a flexible pricing model, and native integrations with many Microsoft tools have made Azure a popular robust cloud computing platform among companies looking. If you plan to join other Azure adopters and use the platform to host and manage your infrastructure, data, apps, or other workloads, you need to remember that successful Azure implementation is only the first step of a successful cloud journey.
To harness the full potential of Azure’s cloud technology, you need to continuously monitor and fine-tune your cloud-based IT ecosystem’s performance, security, and cost-efficiency. Otherwise, you can face security vulnerabilities, cost overruns, and other issues which can hinder your ability to get the expected value from your Azure infrastructure.
In this article, experts from Itransition, a company with an extensive track record in Azure cloud consulting, share 9 practices you can leverage to optimise your Azure-based IT ecosystem.
Performance optimisation
If your Azure-based applications, databases, and other workloads can’t run reliably without response delays or crashes, you risk facing various adverse consequences, ranging from employee productivity declines to unsatisfactory customer experience. To avoid these pitfalls, you need to conduct regular Azure performance fine-tuning.
Useful practices:
- Automate performance diagnostics
Continuous performance diagnostics is key to achieving stable workloads, as it enables companies to identify bottlenecks proactively and timely and helps solve performance issues before they escalate. As tracking and diagnosing performance bottlenecks manually can be too labor-intensive and time-consuming, especially in complex Azure-based IT ecosystems, companies should automate this activity.
There are several ways companies can automate performance diagnostics in Azure. For instance, they can adopt Azure Monitor Metrics, Azure Application Insights, and other platform tools to track common performance KPIs in real-time (memory consumption, response times, and so on) and detect anomalies in these metrics to spot various performance issues. Companies can also track their own custom performance metrics by creating automated scripts in Azure Automation and scheduling performance checks that can run at the specific intervals and examine app performance against predefined KPIs.
- Incorporate self-healing capabilities into Azure apps
A company can reduce the number of application performance gaps by implementing self-healing capabilities that enable solutions to effectively withstand crashes and, in case a crash still occurs, recover to a normal working condition without human intervention. Companies can implement these capabilities by using Azure App Service Auto-Heal, a tool that can analyze app performance data, detect issues timely, and trigger self-healing actions based on predefined rules to restore normal app functionality. For instance, if the application does not respond, Azure App Service Auto-Heal can restart it according to an automated script.
- Fine-tune data retrieval processes
Slow and inefficient data retrieval operations can increase latency experienced by users of Azure-based apps, which is why companies should strive to streamline this aspect, and there are multiple techniques that can come in handy in this regard. A company, for instance, can implement data caching for their applications to reduce the need for the apps to retrieve data from databases and thereby improve app performance. A company also can use storage-level data compression to reduce the volume of data packages transferred from databases to applications and increase the speed of data retrieval, which can also contribute to enhanced app performance.
Security optimisation
The Azure cloud platform operates under a shared responsibility model, which means that Microsoft guarantees only the security of the physical infrastructure of its services, while customers maintain the security of their accounts, devices, and data. To ensure that your Azure-based IT ecosystem is safeguarded against unauthorized access, data exposure, or other security threats, you can use a range of practices covered below.
Useful practices:
- Continuously upskill teams with Azure security training
Even if a company’s in-house teams have experience of working with Azure and understand how to manage and use Azure solutions securely, over time, their knowledge and skills can become insufficient for ensuring the security of your corporate Azure ecosystem. After all, the threat landscape is evolving constantly, with malefactors developing more and more intricate attack methods. To ensure that teams have necessary competencies, companies should provide additional training courses focused on specific aspects of Azure security (intrusion detection and prevention, network security, etc.), either by purchasing them directly from Microsoft or from third-party providers like Coursera, Skillshare, or Udemy.
- Implement an automated incident management system
Implementing an incident management system is one of the most prudent strategies to reduce cyber risk, which enables companies to ensure rapid detection and response to security incidents with little human intervention or even completely without it. Companies can use Microsoft Sentinel
or other relevant tools to build incident management systems that can analyze app telemetry data (performance metrics, user transactions, etc.), identify potential security violations in real time, and respond to them automatically. For prompt incident response, such systems can send alerts to risk and security teams or take immediate automated actions, such as isolating affected systems or installing patches.
- Conduct root cause analysis
Companies can use tools such as Azure Resource Health and Azure Security Center to analyze data about past security incidents that occurred in their cloud environments and identify the factors that led to these incidents. Based on the analysis of incident reports, audit trail of events, and other information, security and risks management teams can explore specific vulnerabilities in its Azure ecosystem (misconfigurations, unprotected endpoints, etc.), map out the common attack vectors, and take measures to prevent these threats from repeating in the future.
Cost optimisation
Cost optimisation is another critical aspect of cloud management, helping businesses better control their Azure cloud spending and prevent escalating cloud costs. This aspect is also perhaps the most challenging, according to 84% of respondents to Flexera’s 2025 State of the Cloud Report.
Useful practices:
- Implement Azure autoscaling
Excessive use of compute resources, also known as overprovisioning, is a key reason for cost overruns during Azure usage. Luckily, this problem can be solved with the help of Azure’s autoscaling capabilities. By using the Autoscale tool built into Azure Monitor, teams can ensure dynamic resource adjustments to match application needs, so that companies would pay only for the resources that are actually required to maintain efficient workload operations. However, using built-in autoscaling capabilities cannot be considered a one-size-fits-all solution for many reasons.
In some cases, companies can have specific autoscaling requirements beyond standard Azure capabilities. In others, they can use services not supporting built-in autoscaling, such as Azure SQL Managed Instance or Azure Application Gateway. In such situations, companies should consider customizing autoscale in Azure by setting up custom rules to trigger autoscaling in Azure Resource Manager or using third-party solutions that provide custom autoscaling capabilities and offer seamless Azure integration (Spot.io, Datadog, New Relic are some examples).
- Use Azure savings plans or Azure reservations
As mentioned earlier, the Azure cloud platform offers a flexible pricing model, allowing companies to select pricing plans that best suit their financial requirements and constraints. Companies aiming to reduce their cloud bills should give special consideration to Savings Plans and Reservations, as these two pricing options can be more cost-efficient compared to the standard pay-as-you-go model. According to Microsoft, Savings Plans enable companies to save up to 65% of costs on compute resources, while Reservations can help save up to 72%.
Both plans offer companies a significant discount if they commit to using virtual machines, servers, and other Azure resources for 1 or 3 years in advance. The difference is that Reservations imply using a fixed combination of compute regions and services (i.e., a particular series of virtual machines) for a specific period, making this plan better suited for companies with predictable business requirements that don’t need to switch between different instance types and regions. In turn, Savings Plans do not constrain the ability to change compute instances or regions within a 1- or 3-year period, making it more suitable for companies with dynamic or unpredictable business requirements.
- Keep track of Azure spending
Effective cost optimisation is impossible without constant monitoring and analysis of expenses related to provisioning of cloud resources, so companies should implement specialized Azure tools that provide visibility into their cloud spending.
For example, companies can use Azure Cost Analysis to track daily spending and forecast future expenses based on historical financial data. Non-specialized tools such as Microsoft Copilot can also be useful for automatically calculating expenses for specific periods and generating recommendations regarding potential cost optimisation measures.
Final thoughts
Microsoft Azure is a highly popular and reputable cloud platform, trusted by hundreds of thousands of businesses globally. Whether you plan to migrate your company’s apps, data, or infrastructure to Azure or only use the platform for new workloads, you should be ready to continuously fine-tune your cloud-based IT ecosystem to ensure its efficiency and reliability. Among all possible improvements, performance fine-tuning, security strengthening, and cost optimisation are the most critical ones.
Nine practices listed in this article will help you achieve the expected level of optimisation. You can also consult with third-party Azure experts to get recommendations adjusted to your unique business case. Experienced consultants can analyze your business requirements and provide bespoke strategies for more efficient Azure security, performance, and cost management.
