Optimize Your Cloud Environment with Azure Platform Landing Zones

What are Azure Landing Zones and why are they important?

Imagine that you are building a house, it is necessary to prepare the ground and have a solid foundation to grow your walls. Moreover, it is also necessary to prepare essential services, for instance, plumbing, heating and insulation, and electric cables in this foundation, otherwise, it will be more complicated and expensive (although possible) to do it later.

An Azure Landing Zone is the same as the house foundation, with essential services to support your platform or applications.

We can say that Azure Landing Zone is a standardized and repeatable framework for deploying and managing resources in Microsoft Azure. It provides a set of best practices and policies, that helps to improve the cloud deployment process and ensure that resources are deployed in a consistent, scalable, and secure manner.

Azure Platform Landing Zones

The set of essential services that are shared by multiple applications is also called Platform Landing Zone. These services, such as Networking and Identity management, are typically managed and centralized by dedicated teams, allowing application teams to concentrate on their core business objectives.

Azure Platform Landing Zone

Microsoft divided the Platform Landing Zones into 8 design areas. These design areas are topics that must be carefully planned to ensure the security and performance of the platform:

**Billing and Active Directory **—Billing is the process of tracking and paying for the resources used in an Azure environment. The Azure billing and cost management platform provide the ability to monitor usage and costs, set budgets and alerts, and optimize spending. Azure Active Directory is a cloud-based identity and access management service that provides centralized identity management and robust security features.
**Identity and access management **— IAM controls access to Azure resources. Azure Active Directory is the main service used for IAM and helps manage user identities, groups, and access to cloud-based apps.
Network topology and connectivity — It deals with the design and communication between virtual network resources. A good design ensures secure and efficient communication and access to the internet and external resources.
Resource organization — It involves grouping and managing resources within an Azure environment. It provides structure and scalability, making it easier to manage and control resource access. Resource groups, subscriptions, and policies to improve efficiency are used to reduce complexity, making it easy to adminstrate and ensure policy compliance in the platform.
Security — This is one of the most important design areas when planning the landing zone. It involves protecting resources with a multi-layered approach, including access control, network security, encryption, and incident response planning.
**Management — **Management in Azure Landing Zones covers processes and tools used to manage and maintain resources. A well-managed landing zone needs clear roles, a change management process, and a structured approach to resource management.
**Governance **— This is about setting the rules to keep your Azure environment organized and secure. Azure has tools like Policy and Role-Based Access Control to enforce your policies. To make things easy, make sure roles are clear and have a plan for making changes.
Platform automation and DevOps — As I am a DevOps guy for almost 10 years, I am suspicious to talk about this topic :D. It basically ensures that tools and processes make the deployment and management of applications and infrastructure easier and faster.

Conclusion

Azure Platform Landing Zones are the perfect solution for businesses looking to streamline their cloud deployment and management processes. With its centralized services, specialized teams, and powerful tools for automation and DevOps, it makes it easier than ever to bring new applications and services to market. Not to mention, the added security and governance features give peace of mind when it comes to managing resources in the cloud. So, whether you’re just starting your cloud journey or looking to optimize your existing operations, Azure Landing Zones are the way to go! So why wait? Get on board and start experiencing the benefits for yourself!