RunAs Radio Azure Resiliency with Chris Ayers
Nov 12, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Chris Ayers, a senior software engineer at Microsoft’s Azure Reliability team, dives into the complexities of Azure resiliency. He highlights the Well-Architected Framework and its role in aligning reliability with business needs. Chris outlines types of outages, the importance of availability zones, and the necessity of balancing costs with service reliability. With practical advice on monitoring, operational excellence, and data protection, he emphasizes the value of automated tools while stressing the importance of human oversight in decision-making.
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Reliability Is Layered And Timeless
- Azure reliability patterns are layered and transferable between Microsoft and customer architectures.
- Understanding Azure internals helps, but fundamentals like redundancy and isolation are timeless.
Quantify Uptime Versus Cost
- Quantify uptime goals realistically because higher nines cost exponentially more.
- Use math to compare outage cost versus resiliency expenses before committing.
Turn On Availability Zones
- Enable availability zones and redundant connectivity to reduce single data center failure impact.
- Check the availability-zone option on services to gain significant reliability quickly.