Why Use an Azure Landing Zone

In this blog post Why Use an Azure Landing Zone for Secure, Scalable Cloud Growth we will explore how a landing zone turns Azure from “subscriptions and services” into a safe, scalable platform your teams can build on with confidence.

If you’re moving beyond a few experimental workloads, an Azure Landing Zone gives you a ready-made foundation: identity, networking, governance, security, and automation wired together before the first app lands. Think of it as the paved road for your cloud program. You get speed and consistency without sacrificing control.

We’ll start with a high-level view of what a landing zone is and why it matters, then dive into the technology behind it, practical design choices, and a step-by-step path to get started—complete with example code you can adapt.

What is an Azure Landing Zone?

An Azure Landing Zone is a set of opinionated, ready-to-use Azure configurations and guardrails that align to the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). It covers the control plane (management groups, policies, RBAC, identity) and the data plane (networking, subscriptions, resource organization) so new workloads can be deployed quickly and safely.

Microsoft provides the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator (the evolution of Enterprise-Scale Architecture). It includes reference architectures, policy sets, and infrastructure-as-code (Bicep/ARM and Terraform) to bootstrap your platform. Note: Azure Blueprints is deprecated and scheduled for retirement in 2026; use Azure Policy plus templates (Bicep/ARM/Terraform) instead.

Why use a Landing Zone?

• Security by default: Policies enforce encryption, restricted locations, private endpoints, and tagging without manual checks.
• Speed with guardrails: Teams get pre-approved subscriptions and networks so delivery isn’t waiting on ad-hoc reviews.
• Consistency at scale: Shared rules (identity, RBAC, network egress, logging) apply automatically across all workloads.
• Audit and compliance: Evidence is built in—Azure Policy compliance, Defender for Cloud, and activity logs are centralized.
• Cost visibility: Standardized tagging, budgets, and cost exports help track and optimize spend.
• Day-2 operations ready: Monitoring, backup, update management, and incident routing are platform features, not afterthoughts.

The technology behind it

A landing zone is not a single product. It’s a combination of Azure control-plane features, network patterns, and automation:

• Management Groups and Subscriptions: Organize by Platform, Sandbox, Corp, and Online (or similar). Policies and RBAC flow down the tree.
• Azure Policy: The enforcement engine. Assign policy sets (initiatives) to management groups for region restrictions, SKU controls, diagnostics, and more.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Least privilege via Azure roles and, increasingly, Entra ID PIM for just-in-time elevation.
• Identity: Microsoft Entra ID as the control-plane identity provider. Conditional Access, MFA, and enterprise app governance protect the portal and APIs.
• Networking: Hub-and-spoke or Virtual WAN, private DNS, firewall, DDoS protection, and standard egress control patterns.
• Platform automation: Bicep or Terraform for declarative deployments, plus CI/CD (GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps) for repeatability and approvals.
• Operations: Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Defender for Cloud, and Security Center baselines applied centrally.

Core building blocks

Management group hierarchy

Create a clear hierarchy so you can scope policies predictably. A common model:

• Root
• Platform (identity, connectivity, management)
• Landing Zones (Corp, Online, or Business Units)
• Sandbox

Attach strict policies at the top, relax where appropriate lower down.

Policy and governance

Use Azure Policy initiatives to codify your rules: allowed locations, required tags, diagnostics, private endpoints, TLS minimums, and key vault usage. Treat policy as code, test in non-prod, and promote through environments.

Identity and access

Centralize identity in Entra ID with Conditional Access, MFA, and PIM. Use management group-level RBAC for platform teams; resource-group roles for app teams. Avoid broad Owner access except for break-glass accounts.

Networking patterns

Start with a hub-and-spoke network for most enterprises. The hub hosts shared services (firewall, Azure Bastion, Private DNS, outbound egress). Spokes are app or domain networks connected via peering or vWAN. Prefer private endpoints to expose PaaS services internally.

Subscription vending

Automate the creation and configuration of new subscriptions: assign to a management group, set budgets, apply policy sets, join the right network, and bootstrap RBAC. This removes weeks of manual setup from every new project.

Security baseline

Enable Microsoft Defender for Cloud across subscriptions, enforce disk and storage encryption, require key vault-backed secrets, and centralize logs. Use Secure Score and policy compliance as your KPI.

How it works under the hood

• Policy evaluation: Azure Policy evaluates at creation and on a schedule; deny effects block non-compliant resources, deployIfNotExists remediates configuration drifts (e.g., enabling diagnostics).
• RBAC: Access tokens carry role assignments; scope them narrowly (resource group or resource) and avoid inheritance surprises by reviewing effective permissions.
• Networking: User-defined routes and Azure Firewall steer outbound traffic; Private DNS zones map private endpoints; DDoS Standard protects public entry points.
• Automation: Pipelines run Bicep/Terraform plans; approvals gate production; state is in Git and, for Terraform, in remote state with locks.

A practical path to your landing zone

1. Decide on scope and principles: Choose hub-and-spoke vs vWAN, regions, and your segmentation (Prod/Non-Prod, BU, or data sensitivity).
2. Stand up the management group tree: Create Platform, Landing Zones, and Sandbox. Map existing subscriptions.
3. Adopt the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator: Start with its policy initiatives and Bicep/Terraform templates, then tailor.
4. Build the platform hub: Identity (Entra), connectivity (vNet/vWAN, Firewall, Private DNS), management (Monitor, Log Analytics), and security (Defender).
5. Implement subscription vending: Automate new subscriptions with policies, budgets, and baseline RBAC.
6. Create an app landing zone: A sample spoke with NSGs, private endpoints, diagnostics, and an app team role model.
7. Operationalize: Alerts, dashboards, incident routing, patch/update flows, backup policies, and cost budgets.

Example snippets you can adapt

Bicep: assign a policy initiative to a management group

targetScope = 'managementGroup'

@description('Target management group ID (e.g., contoso-landingzones)')
param targetMgId string

@description('Policy initiative ID for required diagnostics')
param initiativeId string

resource assignment 'Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments@2022-06-01' = {
  name: 'diag-baseline'
  scope: managementGroup(targetMgId)
  properties: {
    displayName: 'Diagnostics Baseline'
    policyDefinitionId: initiativeId
    enforcementMode: 'Default'
    parameters: {
      logAnalyticsWorkspaceId: {
        value: '/subscriptions/<subId>/resourceGroups/rg-monitor/providers/Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/la-central'
      }
    }
  }
}

Terraform: hub virtual network with firewall and private DNS links

provider "azurerm" { features {} }

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "hub" {
  name     = "rg-hub"
  location = "australiaeast"
}

resource "azurerm_virtual_network" "hub" {
  name                = "vnet-hub"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.hub.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.hub.name
  address_space       = ["10.0.0.0/16"]
}

resource "azurerm_subnet" "AzureFirewallSubnet" {
  name                 = "AzureFirewallSubnet"
  resource_group_name  = azurerm_resource_group.hub.name
  virtual_network_name = azurerm_virtual_network.hub.name
  address_prefixes     = ["10.0.1.0/24"]
}

resource "azurerm_firewall" "hub" {
  name                = "afw-hub"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.hub.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.hub.name
  sku_name            = "AZFW_VNet"
}

# Private DNS example (linking would require an existing zone)
resource "azurerm_private_dns_zone" "priv" {
  name                = "privatelink.database.windows.net"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.hub.name
}

Day-2 operations that stick

• Monitoring: Standardize metric alerts and log queries. Publish dashboards for platform and app teams.
• Security posture: Track Secure Score and policy compliance. Remediate with deployIfNotExists where safe.
• Cost and tagging: Enforce required tags, set budgets per subscription, automate anomaly alerts.
• Drift control: Run scheduled what-if plans (Bicep/Terraform) and policy scans; treat manual changes as exceptions.
• Change management: Use Git-based approvals for platform changes; publish a landing zone release cadence.

Common pitfalls to avoid

• Skipping identity hardening: MFA, PIM, and break-glass accounts are table stakes.
• Overusing exemptions: Too many policy exemptions erode your guardrails—fix the policy or the workload pattern.
• One-size-fits-all networks: Some workloads need their own spokes or even isolated subscriptions; don’t cram everything into one vNet.
• No subscription vending: Manual subscription setup becomes a bottleneck and breeds inconsistency.
• Forgetting non-prod: Apply the same patterns in dev/test to catch issues early.

How CloudProinc.com.au can help

We’ve implemented Azure Landing Zones for organizations of all sizes. Our approach is collaborative: confirm your governance model, deploy a minimal viable landing zone in weeks, and iterate with your teams. We leave you with code, documentation, and the skills to run it.

Quick answers

• Is a landing zone only for large enterprises? No. Start small with the accelerator and grow with your needs.
• Do I need Azure Blueprints? No. Use Azure Policy plus Bicep/Terraform. Blueprints is deprecated and scheduled for retirement in 2026.
• How long does it take? A minimal viable landing zone often lands in 2–6 weeks depending on identity and networking complexity.

Next steps

1. Map your management group hierarchy and regions.
2. Adopt the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator and tailor the policy sets.
3. Automate subscription vending and build your hub network.
4. Onboard your first app team and iterate.

With a solid landing zone, your cloud stops being a collection of ad-hoc deployments and becomes a platform. That’s how you gain speed, maintain control, and scale with confidence.

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