Azure Landing Zone Accelerator for Efficient Cloud Adoption

The Azure Landing Zone Accelerator is a game-changer for businesses looking to adopt the cloud efficiently. It provides a pre-configured, secure, and compliant environment for landing in Azure.

By using the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator, you can save up to 70% of the time and cost associated with setting up a cloud environment. This is because it includes pre-built security and compliance controls, reducing the need for manual configuration.

The accelerator also provides a centralized governance model, making it easier to manage and monitor your cloud resources. This is particularly useful for large-scale deployments, where visibility and control are crucial.

With the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator, you can ensure that your cloud environment meets industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR. This is achieved through the inclusion of pre-configured security and compliance controls.

The Azure Landing Zone Accelerator is a pre-configured deployment experience for organizations that want to implement the Azure Landing Zone architecture.

It's a ready-made solution that delivers a complete implementation of the conceptual architecture, including opinionated configurations for important components like management groups and policies.

The Accelerator is an Azure portal-based deployment, making it easy to use and understand.

It's designed to meet the requirements of 90% of users by default, but can be tailored to accommodate specific needs for advanced scenarios.

The Accelerator follows a three-phase approach, which includes pre-requisites, bootstrap, and run phases.

Here's a breakdown of the three phases:

The Accelerator also offers support for utilizing GitHub or Azure DevOps as targets for the bootstrapping automation.

The Azure Landing Zone Accelerator offers a reusable deployment pattern, eliminating the overhead of constructing automation for Azure Landing Zones modules and making decisions regarding configuration and security of Continuous Delivery.

The Accelerator uses a shared approach to the bootstrapping process with a common PowerShell module, available from the PowerShell Gallery. This module is the ALZ PowerShell module.

The Accelerator deploys and configures various components, including Version Control Systems, Agents/Runners, Networking, and Authentication. Here are the options available for each component:

Using an accelerator can significantly reduce the effort needed for analyzing and creating an Azure Landing Zone deployment.

The Azure Landing Zones Accelerators for Bicep and Terraform offer opinionated patterns and comprehensive automation for setting up Azure Landing Zones modules.

This means teams no longer have to invest considerable time constructing their automation for Azure Landing Zones modules.

The Accelerators eliminate this overhead by providing a reusable deployment pattern.

A ready-made deployment experience is provided by the Azure landing zone accelerator, aligning with an organization's operating model and resource structure.

The accelerator delivers a complete implementation of the conceptual architecture and opinionated configurations for important components like management groups and policies.

This streamlined approach saves time and effort, allowing teams to focus on more critical tasks.

The Azure landing zone implementation options provide a scalable and modular approach to building out your environment. This means you can easily adjust your deployment to meet the specific requirements of various technology platforms.

You can deploy a scalable Azure landing zone that supports cloud adoption at scale, providing repeatable environments with consistent configuration and controls, regardless of the workloads or Azure resources deployed.

The modular approach of Azure landing zones allows you to extend each design area to meet the specific needs of different technology platforms, such as Azure SQL Database, Azure Kubernetes Service, and Azure Virtual Desktop.

Each design area is easily extensible, making it a flexible solution for managing a complex portfolio of tech platforms and workloads.

Here are the key benefits of a scalable and modular Azure landing zone:

Whether you're deploying your first production application to Azure or managing a complex portfolio of tech platforms and workloads, the Azure landing zone implementation options can be tailored to your specific requirements.

To get started with the Azure Landing Zone Accelerator, you'll need to choose an implementation option that fits your organization's needs. There are two main options: "start small" and "enterprise-scale", which are designed to meet different requirements.

The "start small" implementation option is ideal for smaller organizations or those just starting out with cloud adoption. It establishes an infrastructure-as-code approach and provides a series of decision guides to help you make informed decisions.

The "enterprise-scale" implementation option is geared towards larger organizations with well-defined operating models. It includes detailed security, governance, and operations solutions, which are automated and enforced by Azure Policy and other governance tools.

To use the Accelerator, you'll need to use the Accelerators wikis, which provide comprehensive documentation and quick start guides. These can be found here: BicepTerraform

The Accelerators use a shared approach to the bootstrapping process with a common PowerShell module, which is available from the PowerShell Gallery. The basic PowerShell to bootstrap GitHub or Azure DevOps is:

The Accelerators use a shared approach to the bootstrapping process with a common PowerShell module, which is available from the PowerShell Gallery.

The basic PowerShell to bootstrap GitHub or Azure DevOps is a great place to begin.

You can choose from a variety of options when deploying the bootstrap, as shown in the table below. The default options are highlighted in green text, which provide the highest level of security and leverage best practice authentication.

To create management groups, you'll need to deploy the Management Groups Moduleaz deployment. This involves using the Azure CLI to run a Bicep template file.

The Bicep template file is located at infra-as-code/bicep/modules/managementGroups/managementGroups.bicep. You'll also need to provide parameters from the file infra-as-code/bicep/modules/managementGroups/parameters/managementGroups.parameters.all.json.

To specify the location for the deployment, you'll use the --location flag and set it to westeurope.

To place a subscription, you'll need to onboard your on-prem virtual machines to a subscription within the Corp management group. This involves getting the subscription ID, which can be done using the az account show command.

The subscription ID can be retrieved with a command like az account show --query id --output tsv.

Once you have the subscription ID, you can deploy the Subscription Placement Module. This module will move the subscription under the Corp management group, which has an ID of alz-landingzones-corp.

The deployment process involves using the az deployment mg create command with a template file and parameters. The template file is infra-as-code/bicep/modules/subscriptionPlacement/subscriptionPlacement.bicep, and the parameters include the target management group ID and the subscription IDs.

The command to deploy the Subscription Placement Module is az deployment mg create --template-file infra-as-code/bicep/modules/subscriptionPlacement/subscriptionPlacement.bicep --parameters '{"parTargetManagementGroupId": {"value": "alz-landingzones-corp"}, "parSubscriptionIds": {"value": ["'$subscription_id'"]}}' --location westeurope --management-group-id alz.

The subscription will inherit any policy assignments at the Corp management group.

The Azure Landing Zone accelerator is designed to help organizations create a cloud environment that's on par with the best tech operations. It's modular by design, allowing customers to start with foundational Landing Zones that support their application portfolios.

The Azure Landing Zone Architecture is a mature, scaled-out target architecture that represents the destination in many organizations' cloud adoption journeys. It's designed to assist organizations in running successful cloud environments that drive their business while adhering to best practices for security and governance.

Azure Landing Zones provide a clear architecture, reference implementations, and code samples to create the initial cloud environment. By consistently implementing a set of common design areas, this environment will support all other adoption efforts. These design areas represent how the cloud-based operating model is supported.

In the context of cloud adoption, a zone refers to a specific area of the cloud environment that is designed to meet the needs of an organization. An Azure Landing Zone is one such zone that serves as the cornerstone of your cloud adoption.

Azure Landing Zones are designed to establish guardrails and facilitate the deployment of workloads into Azure in a secure, standardized, and scalable manner. This involves setting up management groups, Azure RBAC Roles, Azure Policy, and other management resources.

A typical Azure Landing Zone consists of several key components, including management groups, Azure RBAC Roles, Azure Policy, and management resources such as centralized logging and automation accounts. These components work together to provide a secure and standardized environment for deploying workloads into Azure.

Here are the key components of an Azure Landing Zone:

Azure Landing Zones provide a clear architecture, reference implementations, and code samples to help create the initial cloud environment. By consistently implementing a set of common design areas, this environment will support all other adoption efforts.

An Azure landing zone is a crucial component of a cloud adoption strategy, and understanding its major components is essential for successful implementation.

An Azure landing zone consists of two main types: platform landing zones and application landing zones.

Platform landing zones provide the foundational infrastructure for the cloud environment, including management groups, Azure RBAC roles, and Azure Policy.

Application landing zones, on the other hand, are tailored to specific business needs and can include centralized logging and automation accounts, hub networking, and Azure DNS.

Here is a breakdown of the major components of an Azure landing zone:

By understanding these major components, organizations can design and implement a robust Azure landing zone that meets their specific needs and supports their cloud adoption strategy.