Building an Azure Landing Zone

AC Cloud Engineering
3 min readJun 7, 2023

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In the ever-evolving world of cloud computing, organizations are increasingly turning to Microsoft Azure to harness its scalability, flexibility, and rich feature set. To ensure a successful and secure journey to the cloud, it is crucial to establish a well-structured foundation known as an Azure Landing Zone. In this blog, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to build an Azure Landing Zone, enabling you to leverage the full potential of Azure while adhering to best practices for governance, security, and scalability.

Define Your Requirements: Before diving into the technical aspects, it’s essential to clearly define your requirements and objectives. Identify the goals of your Azure environment, considering governance policies, security and compliance standards, scalability needs, resource organization, and automation requirements. This initial step lays the foundation for the design and architecture of your Azure Landing Zone.

Plan Your Hierarchy and Structure: Next, plan the hierarchy and structure of your Azure environment. Decide on the appropriate subscription structure, resource group organization, and naming conventions. Consider whether your structure will be project-based or aligned with different business units. A well-defined hierarchy ensures efficient management and resource organization.

Design the Network Architecture: An integral part of building an Azure Landing Zone is designing a robust network architecture. Define the virtual network structure, including subnets and IP address ranges. Consider connectivity options, such as connecting to on-premises networks through VPN or ExpressRoute. Implement security controls, like network security groups and Azure Firewall, to protect your resources.

Establish Governance and Management: To maintain control and compliance across your Azure environment, establish a governance model. Define policies for access control, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and resource tagging. Implement monitoring solutions like Azure Policy and Azure Security Center to enforce these policies. This ensures consistency and adherence to organizational guidelines.

Implement Security Controls: Security is of paramount importance in any cloud environment. Implement robust security controls to safeguard your Azure Landing Zone. Configure Azure Active Directory for identity and access management. Utilize encryption mechanisms to protect data at rest and in transit. Implement Azure DDoS Protection and leverage Azure Sentinel for advanced threat detection and response.

Enable Monitoring and Logging: To ensure the health and performance of your Azure Landing Zone, enable comprehensive monitoring and logging. Leverage Azure Monitor, Azure Log Analytics, and Azure Sentinel to gain visibility into your resources. Set up alerts, collect logs, and analyze data to proactively detect and mitigate issues, ensuring optimal performance and availability.

Automate Deployment and Management: Automation is key to managing resources effectively and efficiently. Leverage infrastructure-as-code principles to automate deployment and management tasks. Use Azure Resource Manager templates, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLI to provision and configure resources consistently. Employ Azure DevOps for continuous integration and delivery to streamline the deployment process.

Validate and Test: Before deploying production workloads, thoroughly validate and test your Azure Landing Zone configuration. Verify network connectivity, security controls, governance policies, and automation scripts. Perform load and performance testing to ensure your environment can handle the expected workloads. This step ensures a stable and reliable foundation for your applications.

Deploy Workloads: With a validated Azure Landing Zone, you are now ready to deploy your workloads and applications. Leverage the standardized templates and automation scripts to deploy resources consistently across your environment. This approach provides agility and scalability while adhering to governance policies and security controls.

Continuous Improvement and Optimization: Building an Azure Landing Zone is an ongoing process. Regularly review and optimize your environment to align with evolving business needs and emerging Azure features. Update governance policies, security controls, and automation processes based on lessons learned and industry best practices. Continuous improvement ensures your Azure Landing Zone remains

By Rakhim Ford

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