Why Azure Architecture Diagrams are vital for your company’s success?

In this article, we’ll go over why Azure Architecture Diagrams are crucial for your organization and how Holori Azure diagram tool can help you better estimate and manage your Azure infrastructure.

What is an Azure Architecture diagram?

An Azure architecture diagram is a visual representation of the Azure cloud infrastructure your company already have or plan to set up. It comprises all the information about the network, storage, database, server, etc that are being used or will be used by any individual or organization.

To make it easy for the users to comprehend the infrastructure, Azure architecture diagram uses Azure icons, arrows, groups, and other elements that are link with one another. Thus, Azure architecture diagram is a pictorial description representing various products, resources, and services that help users to understand the flow of information of their infrastructure.

What are the benefits of using the Azure architecture diagram?

The Azure architecture diagram shows which components/resources are currently utilized, which components need to be added, and which components need to be eliminated. Using an Azure diagram, you can expand storage or add extra virtual machines to meet your needs. You can also get rid of extra resources at any time. Therefore, you have greater control over what you use and pay for.

An organization consists of many departments and members from all departments have a special place and role in the growth of the organization. Hence, it’s probable that they all might not be familiar with technical aspects. Thus, an architecture diagram can help them all get on the same page, comprehend the infrastructure, and finish their job.

10 reasons to use Azure architecture diagram

1. To troubleshoot problems, security measures and upgrade security/rectify them.
2. Analysis and quick decision making.
3. Make changes and improve the current infrastructure.
4. To facilitate team communication and suggestion to drive the business forward.
5. To figure out bottlenecks.
6. Budget approval from the financial department.
7. To teach good practices.
8. To minimize the cost by identifying and removing unused components.
9. To plan the future of the cloud environment by adding components to the diagram for a future expansion.
10. Describing/presenting the project quickly to technical stakeholders.

How to draw an Azure architecture diagram using Holori software?

1. First and foremost, consider your infrastructure requirements as well as a rough budget estimate.
2. Create a new project at https://app.holori.com. You can name the project as well as provide a brief description.
3. If you already have a deployed Azure infrastructure that you wish to modify or visualize, you can connect and log in through your Azure account to import your existing infrastructure. Also, you can use Terraform to import your infrastructure. If you wish to start developing an architecture diagram from scratch continue reading.
4. On the left side of the canvas, you will find all the cloud services in the following order Compute>Storage>Network>Database>Serverless. It’s simple to use the pull-down menu and expand any of the options. Now you can choose a service. It is simple to discover the proper service and determine what equivalent service is provided by another cloud provider. Holori’s cloud diagram tool displays the products of various cloud providers. AWS, Azure, GCP, OVH, Alibaba, Linode, and Scaleway, to name a few of them.

The most recent and official information for each Azure product can be obtained from Azure Architecture Center

5. Now you need to choose the Azure product you require and click on its icon. So a product icon would appear in the center of the grid. Similarly, you can choose other products which you will need to design your architecture.

6. Now that you have all the required products on the grid you can define a relationship between them using connectors and by creating a group. Groups can represent an Azure availability zone for ex- Germany West Central, France Central, a subnet, a VPC, etc.

7. You can then define labels for each individual resource such as Bandwidth, CPU, GPU RAM, Disk, and so on.

8. Holori has another great feature which is that you can find an equivalent product from another provider. For instance, “Azure Dedicated Host” is equivalent to Google’s “Sole Tenant Node” and can play the same role in your infrastructure.

9. You can estimate the cost of your Azure project once your Azure architecture diagram is complete. This pricing can be compared between different Azure regions. To your surprise you will find significant variations between locations. Aside from that, you might seek alternatives and see how much a similar architecture at another provider would cost. Alternatively, you can use the mix of multiple services from different providers together. Holori strives to deliver cloud cost optimization and can help you save up to 70% on your costs.

10. Now you need to decide which architecture, location, and provider suit you most and you can proceed with deploying your infrastructure.

a. You can either deploy the infra directly, which would ask you for permission to grant the rights to Holori.

b. Or the second option is to provision it using Terraform export option. You just need to fill up the terraform attributes in the right-hand panel.

5 reasons why should you use Holori for Azure architecture diagram

Use services from Multi-cloud providers

Azure is a fantastic cloud service provider. However, there are other service alternatives. Every service has its own set of advantages, specialties, and rates. There are more than 160 services available on Microsoft Azure. Other providers, too, offer more than 100 services which make it complicated to master more than one cloud environment. However, with Holori, you can access all cloud providers’ products from a single drop-down menu and select the product that best meets your needs. Consequently, we assist you in avoiding headaches and enable new multi-cloud opportunities.

Better cloud costs forecast

You can instantly estimate the total cost of the cloud infrastructure of the Azure architecture diagram you’ve created. Not only that, but you can see how much each component in your diagram costs. Besides that, if you’re not yet satisfied with your current infrastructure, you may utilize Holori’s recommendation to find other infrastructure configurations reducing cloud expenses

Save time and money — no certification required-

Cloud vendors offer certification courses to enable users to use their products and services. This is because Cloud became overly complex with each provider trying to push for their own ecosystem.

As a Holori user, you can sit back and relax. With our software, you can manage the products from all providers in a standardized way. If you are not familiar with Azure, you can create a generic diagram and we will convert the architecture into an Azure architecture diagram. If you are familiar with only one cloud provider product, just design it like this and let us take care of the architecture simulation on other providers. Our mission is to make the cloud simple and more accessible.

A visual Cloud console

The Holori architectural diagram tool connects to the console API of major cloud providers. This enables you to import your existing infrastructure without having to redo everything manually. If you make any changes in your Azure architecture diagram, Holori will perform the updates in your real infrastructure making an alternative to your cloud provider console.If your business policy prohibits access to Holori, you can automate things using Infrastructure as Code. Our architecture diagram software enables you to manage your cloud swiftly, professionally, and conveniently.

Using Azure is complex. Make it simple. Use Holori Azure architecture diagram tool !