AzureFeeds

Hey all 👋

I’ve got a genuinely exciting update to share today, and it’s one that’s been a long time coming: Azure landing zone (ALZ) is now an official Microsoft product, owned by the Azure Migrate product team.

A bit of history first

For the past five or so years, ALZ has been built completely in the open, in the open source repos, in community calls, in issues, in PRs, together with an incredible group of customers, partners, and Microsoft folks who cared enough to keep showing up and making it better. That community effort is the entire reason ALZ is what it is today, and it deserves a moment of recognition before we talk about what’s changing.

So, what’s actually changing?

ALZ is graduating from a community-driven, open-source initiative into a fully-fledged, officially owned Microsoft product, with a dedicated product team behind it in the Azure Migrate team.

For you, practically? Nothing changes. The GitHub repos, the modules, the way you consume ALZ today all stay exactly as they are. What’s changing is who’s steering the ship, and that it now has the backing, investment, and roadmap of an official product team. If you’ve got an issue to raise, that still happens exactly where it always has, over at aka.ms/alz/issues.

What about us?

I want to be upfront about this part: myself (Jack Tracey), Matt White, Jared Holgate, and Zach Trocinski are no longer involved in the day-to-day of ALZ. No more issue triage, no more day-to-day operations from us. That responsibility now sits with the Azure Migrate team.

We’re not disappearing entirely, though. Over the last couple of months we’ve been running a proper handover, and we’ll continue to be around behind the scenes for those moments when the Azure Migrate team needs a bit of extra context we didn’t manage to pass on during that process.

And honestly? You’re in great hands. The Azure Migrate team already know ALZ inside and out. They’ve been working alongside us building the Azure Migrate agent’s platform landing zone creation experience, which uses ALZ under the hood. This isn’t a handover to strangers, it’s a handover to people who’ve already been in the engine room with us.

What can you expect from the Azure Migrate team?

The Azure Migrate team are keen to keep the community engagement up and active, just as we did in the ALZ team of old. They want to run community calls and be just as visible and active as we’ve always tried to be.

So, keep an eye out for blog posts and announcements from them over the coming months. This is very much a “watch this space” moment, and we’re confident you’ll see the same energy and openness from them that you’ve come to expect from ALZ.

A personal thank you

Before I move on, I wanted to add something a bit more personal.

ALZ is one of the things I’m proudest of from my time at Microsoft so far. I’ve built and led it over the past five or six years, surrounded by genuinely great people who helped shape it, and backed by an amazing community, customer, and partner base who supported us every step of the way to make it the success it is today.

So, while I’m stepping away and I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day, ALZ will always hold a special place for me. I’ll forever be happy to chat about it socially. It’s something I still have real passion for, and that’s not going away just because my day job has moved on.

That said, I’m taking those learnings and that passion into other things at Microsoft, including now focusing on AVM (Azure Verified Modules) alongside Jared and several other great folks. We’ll have some announcements of a similar nature to share on that front soon, so watch this space 😁

Thank you 🙌

And finally, the wider thanks. Alongside Matt White, Jared Holgate, and Zach Trocinski, huge thanks to: Paul Grimley, Rob Kuehfus, Sacha Narinx, Seif Bassem, Arjen Huitema, Nelson Pereira, Paulo Alves Oliveira Jr., Vishal Mehrotra, Charlie Grabiaud, Simona Tarantola, Bruno Gabrielli, Luke Taylor, Adam Tuckwell, and Kevin Rowlandson.

A special shout-out too to Remo Leone Laudo, Rhys Ash, Jamie Pla, Igor Jovovic, and Haflidi Fridthjofsson, who will continue to contribute to the ALZ IaC modules alongside their day jobs as CSAs, as and when they can 🙂

And to everyone else who’s contributed to ALZ over the past five years or so, through code, issues, feedback, conversations, or just using it and telling us what worked and what didn’t, thank you. This milestone is yours as much as anyone’s.

Here’s to the next chapter for ALZ. 🎉