Designs

Web Application- Azure Cloud Architecture – Detailed Component Breakdown & NFR Mapping

By SND
June 9, 2026 4 Min Read
0

High Level Architecture

End-to-End Flow

Users (Mobile/Desktop)
        │
        ▼
Azure Front Door
        │
        ▼
Azure Application Gateway (WAF)
        │
        ▼
Azure API Management
        │
        ▼
AKS Cluster
 ├── Product UI Pods (2)
 ├── Order UI Pods (2)
 ├── Product Service Java Pods (3)
 └── Order Service Python Pods (3)
        │
        ▼
Azure Database for PostgreSQL
(Product DB)

Azure Database for PostgreSQL
(Order DB)

Read Replicas

1. User Layer

Mobile & Desktop Users

Users access Product and Order applications through browsers or mobile applications.

Responsibilities

  • User interaction
  • Product browsing
  • Order placement
  • Authentication requests
  • Viewing order status

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
UsabilityResponsive user experience
AccessibilityMulti-device support
AvailabilityAccess through redundant front-end services
PerformanceFast response through Azure edge services

2. Edge & Security Layer

Azure Front Door

Azure Front Door is the global entry point into the platform.

Responsibilities

  • Global traffic routing
  • SSL termination
  • Content acceleration
  • Health probing
  • Failover routing

Why It Replaces F5 LTM

Similar capabilities:

  • Layer 7 load balancing
  • Traffic management
  • Health checks
  • Global routing

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityGlobal failover
PerformanceNearest edge routing
ReliabilityHealth-based routing
ScalabilityHandles millions of requests

Azure Application Gateway (WAF)

Equivalent to F5 ASM.

Responsibilities

  • Web Application Firewall
  • OWASP protection
  • Bot mitigation
  • URL filtering
  • SSL management

Security Features

Protects against:

  • SQL Injection
  • XSS
  • CSRF
  • Request flooding
  • Malicious payloads

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
SecurityLayer 7 protection
ComplianceOWASP compliance
ReliabilityAttack mitigation
AvailabilityBlocks malicious traffic

Azure DDoS Protection

Responsibilities

  • Volumetric attack protection
  • Network attack detection
  • Automatic mitigation

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
SecurityDDoS defense
AvailabilityPrevents service disruption
ReliabilityAutomatic mitigation

3. API Layer

Azure API Management

Acts as the centralized API gateway.

Responsibilities

  • Authentication
  • Authorization
  • Rate limiting
  • Request validation
  • API transformation
  • API versioning
  • Analytics

Example Routes

/api/products/*
        ↓
Product Service

/api/orders/*
        ↓
Order Service

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
SecurityOAuth/JWT validation
PerformanceAPI caching
ScalabilityManaged scaling
GovernanceAPI lifecycle management
ObservabilityAPI analytics

4. AKS Platform Layer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Central container orchestration platform.

Responsibilities

  • Container orchestration
  • Pod scheduling
  • Auto scaling
  • Rolling deployments
  • Self-healing

Features Used

  • Horizontal Pod Autoscaler
  • Cluster Autoscaler
  • Rolling Updates
  • Blue-Green Deployment

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilitySelf-healing
ReliabilityAutomatic recovery
ScalabilityAuto scaling
MaintainabilityStandardized deployments
DeployabilityZero-downtime upgrades

5. UI Layer (Frontend)

Product UI

Product UI Pod 1
Product UI Pod 2

Responsibilities

  • Product catalog display
  • Search interface
  • Product details

Order UI

Order UI Pod 1
Order UI Pod 2

Responsibilities

  • Checkout
  • Order tracking
  • Order history

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityMulti-pod deployment
ScalabilityHorizontal scaling
PerformanceLoad balancing
MaintainabilityIndependent deployment

6. Product Service Domain

Java Product Service

Product Pod 1
Product Pod 2
Product Pod 3

Responsibilities

  • Product catalog
  • Pricing
  • Inventory
  • Search
  • Product availability

Internal Load Balancer

AKS Service distributes traffic across Product pods.

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityMultiple pods
ScalabilityHPA scaling
ReliabilityPod failover
MaintainabilityMicroservice isolation

7. Order Service Domain

Python Order Service

Order Pod 1
Order Pod 2
Order Pod 3

Responsibilities

  • Order creation
  • Order validation
  • Workflow orchestration
  • Payment integration
  • Fulfillment

Internal Load Balancer

Routes traffic across Order service pods.

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityMulti-pod deployment
ReliabilityAutomatic failover
ScalabilityIndependent scaling
MaintainabilityService isolation

8. Database Layer

Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Separate databases:

Product Database

Stores:

  • Products
  • Categories
  • Inventory
  • Pricing

Order Database

Stores:

  • Orders
  • Transactions
  • Status updates
  • Audit records

Zone Redundant Primary

Provides:

  • Automatic failover
  • High availability

Read Replicas

Provides:

  • Read scalability
  • Reporting workloads
  • Reduced load on primary database

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityZone redundancy
ReliabilityReplication
PerformanceRead scaling
RecoverabilityBackup and restore
IntegrityACID transactions

9. Identity & User Center (UC)

Microsoft Entra ID

Equivalent to centralized IAM platform.

Responsibilities

  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • OAuth2
  • OIDC
  • MFA
  • RBAC
  • Conditional Access

Authentication Flow

User
   ↓
Entra ID
   ↓
JWT Token
   ↓
API Management
   ↓
Backend Services

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
SecurityCentralized identity
ComplianceAuditing
UsabilitySSO
MaintainabilityCentral user management

10. Observability Layer

Logging

Azure Monitor Logs

Collects:

  • Application logs
  • Container logs
  • System logs
  • Security logs

Log Analytics Workspace

Central repository for querying and analyzing logs.

Example Queries

Failed Logins

Slow APIs

Pod Crashes

Database Errors

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AuditabilityCentral logs
MaintainabilityRoot cause analysis
ReliabilityFaster troubleshooting

11. Monitoring & Alerting

Azure Monitor

Monitors:

  • CPU
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Database performance
  • API latency

Alerts

Examples:

CPU > 80%

Memory > 75%

Pod Restart Count > 5

Database Connections > Threshold

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
AvailabilityEarly detection
ReliabilitySLA monitoring
PerformanceBottleneck analysis

12. Dashboards

Azure Managed Grafana

Provides:

  • Infrastructure dashboards
  • Business KPIs
  • Service health
  • SLO dashboards

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
ObservabilityReal-time dashboards
MaintainabilityOperational visibility

13. Distributed Tracing

Application Insights

Tracks requests across services.

Example Trace

User Request
      ↓
API Management
      ↓
Product Service
      ↓
PostgreSQL

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
ObservabilityEnd-to-end tracing
ReliabilityFaster issue isolation
PerformanceLatency analysis

14. CI/CD Pipeline

Source Control

Azure Repos

Stores source code.

Build Pipeline

Azure Pipelines

Pipeline stages:

Build
 ↓
Unit Tests
 ↓
Code Analysis
 ↓
Security Scan
 ↓
Package

Artifact Repository

Azure Artifacts

Stores build artifacts.

Container Registry

Azure Container Registry (ACR)

Stores Docker images.

Helm Deployment

Helm

Used for:

  • Release management
  • Rollback
  • Version control

Deployment

Azure Repos
      ↓
Azure Pipelines
      ↓
ACR
      ↓
Helm
      ↓
AKS

Deployment Strategy

  • Blue-Green
  • Rolling Update
  • Rollback

NFR Coverage

NFRBenefit
DeployabilityAutomated releases
ReliabilityConsistent deployment
RecoverabilityRollback capability
SecurityAutomated scans

Enterprise NFR Coverage Matrix

NFRAzure Services Supporting It
AvailabilityFront Door, AKS, PostgreSQL HA, Read Replicas
ScalabilityAKS HPA, Cluster Autoscaler, API Management
PerformanceFront Door, Read Replicas, Caching
SecurityWAF, DDoS Protection, Entra ID, API Management
ReliabilityAKS Self-Healing, PostgreSQL Replication
MaintainabilityAKS, Helm, Azure Pipelines, Central Logging
ObservabilityAzure Monitor, Log Analytics, Grafana, App Insights
RecoverabilityBackups, Geo-restore, Rollback Deployments
AuditabilityEntra ID Logs, Azure Monitor Logs
DeployabilityAzure DevOps, ACR, Helm, AKS

Recommended Production Targets

  • Availability: 99.95%+
  • RTO: < 30 minutes
  • RPO: < 5 minutes
  • Auto-scaling: Based on CPU, Memory, or Custom Metrics
  • Security: Zero Trust with Entra ID + WAF + Private Networking
  • Observability: Full-stack monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing across Product and Order domains.

Author

SND

Technology leader with 24 years of experience designing and delivering large-scale enterprise applications across multiple industries. Expertise in Java, Spring ecosystem, cloud-native architectures, and distributed systems. Strong background in Big Data, machine learning, and building scalable, high-performance platforms. Extensive experience with open-source technologies, databases, microservices, and modern application modernization initiatives. Proven track record of leading architecture, engineering, and digital transformation programs from concept to production.

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