Azure Health Check: the five pillars that improve your cloud
Blog|by Jamie Carruthers|27 January 2026

Azure estates grow fast. When that happens, cost control, security discipline, and architectural quality can slip by unnoticed. An Azure Health Check gives you clarity on the state of your platform and highlights the actions needed to strengthen it. We assess your environment through the five Microsoft Well-Architected pillars: reliability, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence, and performance efficiency. This gives you a clear view of strengths, weaknesses, and improvement priorities.
Our approach is practical. You get direct insights and specific recommendations that help you make better decisions quickly.
- Reliability: build resilience into your environment
Reliability determines how systems respond when things go wrong. We review backups, availability zones, recovery strategies, and the configuration patterns that influence uptime. You gain a clear understanding of where risks sit and how to strengthen resilience.
The benefit: stronger business continuity, fewer disruptions, and quicker recovery when issues occur.
- Security: protect access, data, and workloads
Security gaps often remain hidden until they cause real problems. We check identity controls, network protections, data safeguards, and threat detection. You receive a clear outline of the risks and the changes needed to reduce exposure.
The benefit: lower breach risk, easier compliance, and a security posture you can demonstrate with confidence.
- Cost optimisation: keep spending efficient and predictable
Uncontrolled growth leads to unpredictable Azure bills. We analyse consumption patterns, sizing decisions, reservations, and misconfigurations that inflate cost. You get prioritised recommendations that improve efficiency while maintaining performance.
The benefit: lower waste, more predictable spending, and better value from your cloud investment.
- Operational excellence: improve visibility and control
A well-run Azure environment needs clear governance and effective operations. We evaluate monitoring, alerting, tagging, and deployment practices. This helps your teams shift from reactive firefighting to more proactive and dependable operations.
The benefit: fewer surprises, faster diagnosis, and a smoother day-to-day experience for engineering teams.
- Performance efficiency: stay responsive as usage grows
Performance efficiency ensures workloads handle changes in demand. We review scalability, auto scale settings, telemetry, and bottlenecks. You receive a practical plan to improve responsiveness and maintain high performance as usage increases.
The benefit: consistent performance that supports customers and product teams as the organisation grows.
Who this helps
Our Azure health check assessment is ideal for organisations where Azure has evolved without regular oversight:
- Your environment grew without structured governance.
- Best practice hasn’t been reviewed in several years.
- You recently migrated workloads and want to validate the foundation.
- Test, UAT, and production environments have multiplied and increased in complexity.
- You need clearer visibility into cost, performance, and security posture.
A twice-yearly review keeps your Azure estate aligned to modern best practice and current commercial objectives.
What you receive with our Azure Health Check and why it matters
- A written health check report: A concise, pillar-by-pillar analysis that outlines risks, explains what they mean, and shows you what to prioritise first. This becomes your reference point for conversations with engineering, leadership, and finance.
- Actionable remediation guidance: Specific recommendations tied to your environment. Everything is prioritised by impact, relevance, and effort, so you know where action will deliver the most value.
- A half-day review session with our Azure specialists: We walk through the findings, answer your questions, and explain the thinking behind each recommendation. This helps you align quickly and removes ambiguity.
- Flexibility in how you act: You can implement the fixes yourself or ask us to support the remediation. Either option starts from a clear, informed plan.
Why organisations trust us
We combine Microsoft best practices with real experience supporting SDCs, SaaS providers, and technology teams. We’re recognised as an Azure Specialist for SDC, hold multiple Microsoft solution partner designations, and help businesses build secure, efficient, scalable Azure platforms.
Take control of your Azure environment
If you want a more secure, efficient, and reliable Azure estate, an Azure Health Check is your fastest route to clarity and action.
- Internal link: Explore our full service overview
- External link: Learn more about the Well Architected Framework pillars
Contact Grey Matter
If you have any questions or want some extra information, complete the form below and one of the team will be in touch ASAP. If you have a specific use case, please let us know and we'll help you find the right solution faster.
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