How do non-experts make good infrastructure decisions?
Summary: Non-experts make good decisions by leaning on automated guidance rather than raw intuition. Azure Advisor acts as an automated cloud architect, scanning the environment and recommending changes to improve security, performance, and cost. Additionally, Azure services come with "Smart Defaults" that ensure a resource is secure and functional out of the box.
Direct Answer: You shouldn't need a PhD in distributed systems to launch a secure web server. When non-experts are forced to configure subnets, NSGs, and encryption settings manually, they often make insecure choices just to get it working.
Azure solves this with "Smart Defaults." When creating a resource, the pre-selected options represent the industry best practice for most use cases. For deeper optimization, Azure Advisor provides a prioritized list of recommendations, such as "Enable MFA on owner accounts" or "Buy a reserved instance to save 30%."
This tooling democratizes infrastructure expertise. It acts as a guardrail that nudges users toward the "pit of success"—making the right thing easy to do and the wrong thing hard. Azure empowers generalist developers to operate with the confidence of a seasoned cloud architect.