// Azure Myth 3: You don’t need requirements in the Cloud… Or do you? - Azure MythBusters

Requirements are not optional in the cloud — they are the primary driver of every architectural decision. The FastTrack for Azure team frames requirements gathering using an Aim-Plan-Do approach: first understand the scenario (e-commerce, healthcare, etc.) to surface compliance obligations, data sovereignty rules, and contractual SLAs; then let those requirements determine which Azure services and configurations are appropriate.

The episode demonstrates composite SLA calculation for a multi-tier web application (SQL Database + Queue + Web App), showing how multiplying individual service SLAs reveals whether a single-region deployment meets the target. Reference architectures from the Azure Architecture Center illustrate the progression: a basic single-region web app satisfies moderate availability; adding CDN, DNS, and additional tiers addresses scalability and higher availability requirements. Over-fitting requirements results in unnecessarily complex, expensive designs, while under-fitting leaves the solution unfit for purpose.