Azure Management & Governance

Last updated: 2023-10-27 | By: Azure Documentation Team

Effective management and governance are crucial for any cloud deployment. Azure provides a comprehensive set of tools and services to help you manage your resources, enforce policies, control costs, and ensure compliance across your Azure and hybrid environments.

Key Concepts

Azure Resource Manager (ARM)

Azure Resource Manager is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure account. You interact with ARM through its REST APIs, command-line tools, and client libraries. ARM ensures that your infrastructure is deployed in a consistent state.

Azure Policy

Azure Policy helps you enforce organizational standards and assess compliance at scale. It allows you to grant or deny resources based on specific rules (policies). For example, you can use Azure Policy to ensure that all virtual machines deployed in your subscription are of a specific size, or that resources are deployed only in approved geographical regions.

Note: Azure Policy evaluates resources by comparing resource properties to the conditions defined in the policy.

Azure Blueprints

Azure Blueprints allow developers and non-operations IT professionals to define a repeatable set of Azure resources that adheres to an organization's standards and requirements. With blueprints, you can manage consistency across your subscriptions and accelerate compliance with corporate standards for things like security and cost management.

Cost Management + Billing

Azure Cost Management + Billing provides tools to help you understand your Azure spending, manage budgets, and optimize your costs. You can monitor costs in near real-time, identify spending trends, and set alerts to notify you when costs exceed defined thresholds.

Core Management Services

Azure Monitor

Azure Monitor is a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications and resources are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them.

Azure Advisor

Azure Advisor is a personalized recommendation service that helps you follow best practices to optimize your Azure deployments. It provides recommendations across several categories: cost, performance, security, reliability, and operational excellence.

Azure Automation

Azure Automation provides a cloud-based automation and configuration service that enables management across your Azure and non-Azure environments. It helps you automate time-consuming, repetitive management tasks.

Best Practices for Governance

Define clear roles and responsibilities: Use Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to grant the least privilege necessary.
Implement naming conventions: Use consistent naming for resources to improve organization and searchability.
Enforce policies: Use Azure Policy to govern resource deployments and configurations.
Tag resources: Apply tags for cost allocation, resource grouping, and automation.
Establish budgets and alerts: Use Azure Cost Management to monitor spending and avoid unexpected charges.
Regularly review security posture: Utilize Azure Security Center and Azure Advisor for security recommendations.

Example: Implementing a Basic Policy

Here's a simple example of an Azure Policy that denies the creation of storage accounts outside of specific regions:

                    
{
  "mode": "All",
  "policyRule": {
    "if": {
      "allOf": [
        {
          "field": "type",
          "equals": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts"
        },
        {
          "field": "location",
          "notIn": [
            "eastus",
            "westus",
            "westeurope"
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    "then": {
      "effect": "deny"
    }
  }
}
                    
                

Tip: You can assign policies at different scopes, such as management group, subscription, or resource group, to control their reach.

By leveraging these Azure services and following best practices, you can establish robust management and governance for your cloud environment, ensuring efficiency, security, and compliance.