Master the Cloud with Microsoft’s Azure Landing Zones
The cloud is one of the modern era’s greatest innovations. Connecting remotely to servers from anywhere allows for unparalleled productivity and flexibility.
Of course, making the most of the cloud is no easy feat. Luckily, tools like Microsoft Azure Landing Zones make cloud adoption and usage simpler.
In this short guide, we examine Azure Landing Zones and how the CompuNet team can help you leverage this tech to your benefit.
What is a Microsoft Azure Landing Zone?
An Azure Landing Zone (ALZ) is a set of guidelines, best practices, and tools developed by Microsoft to help you create a secure, compliant, and scalable cloud environment. With our Azure expertise, we can create a brand-new Azure Landing Zone specifically for your organization, ensuring it meets all best practices and is customized to your unique requirements.
ALZ environments follow key design principles across eight “design areas.” These are:
- Billing and Management Tenant
- Identity and Access Management
- Resource Organization
- Network Topology and Connectivity
- Security
- Management
- Governance
- Platform Automation and DevOps
These design principles apply to all applications, allowing you to logically delegate usage and control.
A Landing Zone for Your Landing Zones
With an Azure Landing Zone (ALZ) in place, you can apply configurations and controls to every “subscription,” each of which can be thought of as a mini-Azure environment. It’s crucial to understand that Azure Landing Zones are provisioned via Infrastructure as Code (IaC), ensuring consistency and best practices without the need for manual configuration through the portal.
There are two types of landing zones within an ALZ:
- Platform Landing Zones (PLZs): These serve as the bedrock for the entire Azure environment, providing shared services like management, connectivity, and identity to applications. Think of PLZs as a master planned community—handling core thoroughfares, water mains, setting key standards, etc. They form the broadly applicable foundations within a management group.
- Application Landing Zones (App LZs): Separate from platform landing zones for greater control and privacy, these focus on managing application-specific resources. App LZs are like a building’s foundation—they “rough in” the plumbing (connect to the PLZ “water mains”), connect to the shared roads and “grid,” and follow community design standards (governance). They can grow into a small house, some townhomes, or even a high-rise.
It’s important to note that Platform LZs and App LZs are not mutually exclusive. The PLZ serves as the foundation where App LZs sit on top. While subscriptions often align with LZs, a true LZ incorporates all those design areas mentioned above. In the case of Platform Landing Zones, one LZ is comprised of many subscriptions.
Establishing a PLZ and then using Infrastructure as Code to rapidly “stamp out” templated App LZs ensures rapid deployment without compromising on best practices.
Ultimately, an ALZ lets you organize your workloads effectively, ensuring governance and scalability within your cloud infrastructure.
How Can CompuNet Help?
As you can see, Microsoft Azure Landing Zones are quite complex. Fortunately, CompuNet is a Microsoft Azure Landing Zones partner, so we can assist you in deciphering the details and applying them to your organization.
Whether you’re at the beginning of your cloud journey or operating within an existing environment, our engineer-led team can support you with ALZs every step of the way. Here’s how.
Implementation Consulting
Our work begins with an assessment of your needs. Using the Azure Landing Zone Review tool and our knowledge of ALZs, we identify where your organization’s cloud infrastructure stands—if it exists at all.
Thanks to our status as a FastTrack Ready Partner, we can efficiently set up a customized ALZ that addresses your organization’s growth goals.
Migration
If your organization has yet to approach cloud computing, we can support you with a complete migration. By leaning on tools like the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator and our engineers’ expertise, we make migrations as painless as possible, avoiding costly downtime.
Cost Management
Managing costs in the context of Azure Landing Zones (ALZs) is crucial for maintaining budgetary control and optimizing resource usage. While each Azure subscription has its own billing model, most subscriptions are tied to a single billing account, simplifying the overall licensing landscape.
The Landing Zones methodology supports cost management by enhancing visibility and accountability through show-back and charge-back mechanisms. This approach allows for detailed tracking of resource usage and costs, ensuring that each department or project is accountable for its consumption. Additionally, it aids in cost optimization by identifying areas where resources can be used more efficiently.
Our experts can help you navigate the cost management landscape and emerge with the best possible strategies for visibility, accountability, and optimization.
Support
We don’t disappear once you start leveraging ALZs. At any point after implementation, we’re happy to assist with questions or concerns. We even provide documentation and training that helps you work through common challenges.
To experience this white-glove service for yourself, contact our team today. We look forward to walking you through Microsoft Azure Landing Zones and other best-in-class Microsoft solutions.
Sources:
Microsoft Learn. What is an Azure landing zone?https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/landing-zone/
