Looking for a way to standardise creation of Azure environments? Azure Landing Zones might just be the solution for you. Offering a secure, scalable and efficient approach, an organisation can reduce the time and effort required to deploy workloads to the cloud, while ensuring their cloud environment meets organisational requirements.
What is Azure Landing Zones?
Azure landing zones are a set of best practice, guidelines and design patterns for creating a standardised and repeatable Azure environment. Azure landing zones provide a foundation for deploying workloads to the cloud and help organisations achieve their cloud adoption goals with confidence. An Azure landing zone typically includes the following components:
- Networking: A well-designed network topology that ensures secure connectivity between various resources and workloads.
- Identity & Access Management: A centralised identity and access management system that allows users and applications to access Azure resources securely.
- Governance: A set of policies and procedures for managing and monitoring Azure resources and workloads.
- Security: A robust security framework that provides comprehensive protection against various threats and vulnerabilities.
- Operations: A set of processes and tools for managing and maintaining the Azure environment.
Why use an ALZ?
There are several benefits to organisations that are looking to migrate to the cloud or optimise their existing cloud environment. Here are some of the key benefits of using an Azure Landing Zone:
| Benefit | Description |
| Security | Providing a set of best practices & guidelines for creating a secure and compliant environment. Ensure you’re protected against various threats and vulnerabilities. |
| Scalability | Designed to scale as your organisation needs evolve. Organisations can easily add new resources and workloads without having to re-architect the entire environment. |
| Efficiency | Automated processes & tools for deploying and managing Azure resources. Reducing time, efforts & costs required to setup and manage the organisations environment. |
| Consistency | Provides a consistant approach for setting up and managing Azure resources. Organisations can ensure consistency across different teams, projects & regions. |
| Compliance | Following a set of best practices & guidelines that meet regulatory and compliance requirements. Organisations can follow compliance with various industry standards and regulations. |
How to create an Azure Landing Zone
Creating an Azure landing zone involves several steps that are tailored to an organisations specific needs & requirements. Here at Next2IT we work with your organisation to ensure all areas of your organisation are encapsulated.
- Define the scope: Include the target region, resource groups, virtual networks and subscription structure.
- Define the governance model: Including policies, standards & procedures for managing and monitoring resources.
- Define the identity & access management strategy: Including authentication & authorisation mechanisms for users and applications.
- Define the network strategy: Including virtual network topology, subnets and connectivity between different resources.
- Define the security strategy: Including the network security, identity & access management and data protection mechanisms.
- Define the monitoring & login strategy: Including tools & processes for monitoring and analysing resources.
- Define the automation strategy: Including tools and processes for automating the deployment and management of resources.
Ensuring all key stages are covered is crucial in assuring your Azure Landing Zone is correct for your organisation to fully benefit.
Conclusion
Azure Landing Zones provide a standardised and repeatable approach for creating an Azure environment that is secure, scalable, efficient, consistent and compliant. By using an Azure Landing Zone, organisations can reduce their time and effort required to deploy workloads to the cloud while ensuring that their Azure environment meets organisational requirements and compliance standards. Azure landing zones provide a solid foundation for organisations to build and operate their cloud environment with confidence.
Talk to an expert today on 0330 1332 202 or email sales@next2it.co.uk. Follow us on LinkedIn.
