Azure.Pillar.Reliability
March 30, 2026 ยท View on GitHub
Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework - Reliability pillar specific baseline.
Rules
The following rules are included within the Azure.Pillar.Reliability baseline.
This baseline includes a total of 102 rules.
| Name | Synopsis | Severity | Maturity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure.ACR.GeoReplica | Applications or infrastructure relying on a container image may fail if the registry is not available at the time they start. | Important | - |
| Azure.ACR.MinSku | The Basic SKU provides limited performance and features for production container registry workloads. | Important | - |
| Azure.ADX.SLA | Use SKUs that include an SLA when configuring Azure Data Explorer (ADX) clusters. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.AvailabilityZone | AKS clusters deployed with virtual machine scale sets should use availability zones in supported regions for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.CNISubnetSize | AKS clusters using Azure CNI should use large subnets to reduce IP exhaustion issues. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.MaintenanceWindow | Configure customer-controlled maintenance windows for AKS clusters. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.MinNodeCount | AKS clusters should have minimum number of system nodes for failover and updates. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.MinUserPoolNodes | User node pools in an AKS cluster should have a minimum number of nodes for failover and updates. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.PoolVersion | AKS node pools should match Kubernetes control plane version. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.UptimeSLA | AKS clusters should have Uptime SLA enabled for a financially backed SLA. | Important | - |
| Azure.AKS.Version | Older versions of Kubernetes may have known bugs or security vulnerabilities, and may have limited support. | Important | - |
| Azure.APIM.AvailabilityZone | API Management instances should use availability zones in supported regions for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.APIM.CertificateExpiry | Renew certificates used for custom domain bindings. | Important | - |
| Azure.APIM.MultiRegion | Enhance service availability and resilience by deploying API Management instances across multiple regions. | Important | - |
| Azure.APIM.MultiRegionGateway | API Management instances should have multi-region deployment gateways enabled. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppConfig.GeoReplica | Replicate app configuration store across all points of presence for an application. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppConfig.PurgeProtect | Consider purge protection for app configuration store to ensure store cannot be purged in the retention period. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppConfig.SKU | App Configuration should use a minimum size of Standard. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppGw.AvailabilityZone | Application Gateway (App Gateway) should use availability zones in supported regions for improved resiliency. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppGw.MigrateWAFPolicy | Migrate to Application Gateway WAF policy. | Critical | - |
| Azure.AppGw.MinInstance | Application Gateways should use a minimum of two instances. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppService.AlwaysOn | Configure Always On for App Service apps. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppService.AvailabilityZone | Deploy app service plan instances using availability zones in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppService.PlanInstanceCount | App Service Plan should use a minimum number of instances for failover. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppService.WebProbe | Configure and enable instance health probes. | Important | - |
| Azure.AppService.WebProbePath | Configure a dedicated path for health probe requests. | Important | - |
| Azure.ASE.AvailabilityZone | Deploy app service environments using availability zones in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.AVD.ScheduleAgentUpdate | Define a windows for agent updates to minimize disruptions to users. | Important | - |
| Azure.ContainerApp.AvailabilityZone | Use Container Apps environments that are zone redundant to improve reliability. | Important | - |
| Azure.ContainerApp.HealthProbe | Container app ingress that uses HTTP should have HTTP health probes configured for liveness and readiness checks. | Important | - |
| Azure.ContainerApp.MinReplicas | Use multiple replicas to remove a single point of failure. | Important | - |
| Azure.ContainerApp.Storage | Use of Azure Files volume mounts to persistent storage container data. | Awareness | - |
| Azure.Cosmos.AvailabilityZone | Use zone redundant Cosmos DB accounts in supported regions to improve reliability. | Important | L1 |
| Azure.Cosmos.ContinuousBackup | Enable continuous backup on Cosmos DB accounts. | Important | - |
| Azure.Cosmos.MongoAvailabilityZone | Use zone redundant Cosmos DB vCore clusters in supported regions to improve reliability. | Important | L1 |
| Azure.Cosmos.SLA | Use a paid tier to qualify for a Service Level Agreement (SLA). | Important | - |
| Azure.DataFactory.Version | Consider migrating to DataFactory v2. | Awareness | - |
| Azure.EntraDS.MinReplicas | Applications or infrastructure relying on a managed domain may fail if the domain is not available. | Important | - |
| Azure.EntraDS.SKU | The default SKU for Microsoft Entra Domain Services supports resiliency in a single region. | Important | - |
| Azure.EventHub.AvailabilityZone | Use zone redundant Event Hub namespaces in supported regions to improve reliability. | Important | L1 |
| Azure.Firewall.AvailabilityZone | Deploy firewall instances using availability zones in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.FrontDoor.Probe | Use health probes to check the health of each backend. | Important | - |
| Azure.FrontDoor.ProbeMethod | Configure health probes to use HEAD requests to reduce performance overhead. | Important | - |
| Azure.FrontDoor.ProbePath | Configure a dedicated path for health probe requests. | Important | - |
| Azure.Grafana.AvailabilityZone | Use zone redundant Grafana workspaces in supported regions to improve reliability. | Important | L1 |
| Azure.Grafana.Version | Grafana workspaces should be on Grafana version 10. | Important | - |
| Azure.KeyVault.PurgeProtect | Enable Purge Protection on Key Vaults to prevent early purge of vaults and vault items. | Important | - |
| Azure.KeyVault.SoftDelete | Enable Soft Delete on Key Vaults to protect vaults and vault items from accidental deletion. | Important | - |
| Azure.LB.AvailabilityZone | Load balancers deployed with Standard SKU should be zone-redundant for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.LB.Probe | Use a specific probe for web protocols. | Important | - |
| Azure.LB.StandardSKU | Load balancers should be deployed with Standard SKU for production workloads. | Important | - |
| Azure.Log.Replication | Log Analytics workspaces should have workspace replication enabled to improve service availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.MariaDB.GeoRedundantBackup | Azure Database for MariaDB should store backups in a geo-redundant storage. | Important | - |
| Azure.MICassandra.AvailabilityZone | Use zone redundant Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra clusters in supported regions to improve reliability. | Important | L1 |
| Azure.Monitor.ServiceHealth | Configure Service Health alerts to notify administrators. | Important | - |
| Azure.MySQL.GeoRedundantBackup | Azure Database for MySQL should store backups in a geo-redundant storage. | Important | - |
| Azure.MySQL.MaintenanceWindow | Configure a customer-controlled maintenance window for Azure Database for MySQL servers. | Important | - |
| Azure.MySQL.UseFlexible | Use Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server deployment model. | Important | - |
| Azure.MySQL.ZoneRedundantHA | Deploy Azure Database for MySQL servers using zone-redundant high availability (HA) in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.NIC.UniqueDns | Network interfaces (NICs) should inherit DNS from virtual networks. | Awareness | - |
| Azure.NSG.DenyAllInbound | When all inbound traffic is denied, some functions that affect the reliability of your service may not work as expected. | Important | - |
| Azure.PostgreSQL.GeoRedundantBackup | Azure Database for PostgreSQL should store backups in a geo-redundant storage. | Important | - |
| Azure.PostgreSQL.MaintenanceWindow | Configure a customer-controlled maintenance window for Azure Database for PostgreSQL servers. | Important | - |
| Azure.PostgreSQL.ZoneRedundantHA | Deploy Azure Database for PostgreSQL servers using zone-redundant high availability (HA) in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.PublicIP.AvailabilityZone | Public IP addresses deployed with Standard SKU should use availability zones in supported regions for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.PublicIP.StandardSKU | The basic SKU is being retired on 30 September 2025, and does not include several reliability and security features. | Important | - |
| Azure.Redis.AvailabilityZone | Premium Redis cache should be deployed with availability zones for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.Redis.Version | Azure Cache for Redis should use the latest supported version of Redis. | Important | - |
| Azure.RedisEnterprise.Zones | Enterprise Redis cache should be zone-redundant for high availability. | Important | - |
| Azure.RSV.ReplicationAlert | Recovery Services Vaults (RSV) without replication alerts configured may be at risk. | Important | - |
| Azure.RSV.StorageType | Recovery Services Vaults (RSV) not using geo-replicated storage (GRS) may be at risk. | Important | - |
| Azure.Search.IndexSLA | Use a minimum of 3 replicas to receive an SLA for query and index updates. | Important | - |
| Azure.Search.QuerySLA | Use a minimum of 2 replicas to receive an SLA for index queries. | Important | - |
| Azure.SignalR.SLA | Use SKUs that include an SLA when configuring SignalR Services. | Important | - |
| Azure.SQL.MaintenanceWindow | Configure a customer-controlled maintenance window for Azure SQL databases. | Important | - |
| Azure.SQLMI.MaintenanceWindow | Configure a customer-controlled maintenance window for Azure SQL Managed Instances. | Important | - |
| Azure.Storage.ContainerSoftDelete | Enable container soft delete on Storage Accounts. | Important | - |
| Azure.Storage.FileShareSoftDelete | Enable soft delete on Storage Accounts file shares. | Important | - |
| Azure.Storage.SoftDelete | Enable blob soft delete on Storage Accounts. | Important | - |
| Azure.Storage.UseReplication | Storage Accounts using the LRS SKU are only replicated within a single zone. | Important | - |
| Azure.Template.LocationDefault | Set the default value for the location parameter within an ARM template to resource group location. | Awareness | - |
| Azure.TrafficManager.Endpoints | Traffic Manager should use at lest two enabled endpoints. | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.ASAlignment | Use availability sets aligned with managed disks fault domains. | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.ASDistributeTraffic | Ensure high availability by distributing traffic among members in an availability set. | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.ASMinMembers | Availability sets should be deployed with at least two virtual machines (VMs). | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.BasicSku | Virtual machines (VMs) should not use Basic sizes. | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.MaintenanceConfig | Use a maintenance configuration for virtual machines. | Important | - |
| Azure.VM.Standalone | Single instance VMs are a single point of failure, however reliability can be improved by using premium storage. | Important | - |
| Azure.VMSS.AutoInstanceRepairs | Applications or infrastructure relying on a virtual machine scale sets may fail if VM instances are unhealthy. | Important | - |
| Azure.VMSS.AvailabilityZone | Deploy virtual machine scale set instances using availability zones in supported regions to ensure high availability and resilience. | Important | - |
| Azure.VMSS.ZoneBalance | Deploy virtual machine scale set instances using the best-effort zone balance in supported regions. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNET.BastionSubnet | VNETs with a GatewaySubnet should have an AzureBastionSubnet to allow for out of band remote access to VMs. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNET.FirewallSubnetNAT | Zonal-deployed Azure Firewalls should consider using an Azure NAT Gateway for outbound access. | Awareness | - |
| Azure.VNET.LocalDNS | Virtual networks (VNETs) should use DNS servers deployed within the same Azure region. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNET.SingleDNS | Virtual networks (VNETs) should have at least two DNS servers assigned. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNG.ERAvailabilityZoneSKU | Use availability zone SKU for virtual network gateways deployed with ExpressRoute gateway type. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNG.ERLegacySKU | Migrate from legacy SKUs to improve reliability and performance of ExpressRoute (ER) gateways. | Critical | - |
| Azure.VNG.MaintenanceConfig | Use a customer-controlled maintenance configuration for virtual network gateways. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNG.VPNActiveActive | Use VPN gateways configured to operate in an Active-Active configuration to reduce connectivity downtime. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNG.VPNAvailabilityZoneSKU | Use availability zone SKU for virtual network gateways deployed with VPN gateway type. | Important | - |
| Azure.VNG.VPNLegacySKU | Migrate from legacy SKUs to improve reliability and performance of VPN gateways. | Critical | - |
| Azure.WebPubSub.SLA | Use SKUs that include an SLA when configuring Web PubSub Services. | Important | - |