Microsoft Azure Exams, Network and application protection, The Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure

Azure Blueprints – Azure Governance

Azure Blueprints

Azure Blueprints is much the same as we can think of blueprints outside of a technology discussion; it provides patterns, designs, and definitions for creating something. We can think of this along the lines of a blueprint for a house, a car, a space rocket, and so on; an Azure blueprint is no different from this concept.

An Azure blueprint is a package or representation of a collection of defined, prescribed, repeatable resources to be deployed that conform to an organization’s governance standards and patterns when implemented. This allows governance and design parameters to be defined that rapidly allow teams to repeatedly stand up projects and initiatives within the blueprint’s control.

Azure blueprints can be created through the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, the Azure CLI, ARM templates, or the REST API; blueprint definitions are saved to a management group or subscription, which requires contributor access.

Blueprints are represented as objects and are replicated to multiple Azure regions so that they can always be accessed from whichever region you wish to deploy resources to. This allows you to create repeatable environments that use the same defined artifacts each time across all subscriptions.

One blueprint can be assigned to govern several subscriptions, so they always have the same definitions; blueprints are assigned to the management or subscription level.

A blueprint is made up of a blueprint definition (what should be deployed) and a blueprint assignment (where is it being deployed). It is composed of artifacts, and the blueprint can be thought of as the container, package, or scaffolding, as it were. The following diagram aims to visualize the concepts of Azure Blueprints:

Figure 9.5 – Azure Blueprints

In summary, Azure Blueprints allows governed environments to be quickly and repeatably deployed across subscriptions to a governed resources standard using a set of composed artifacts.

In this section, we looked at Azure Blueprints. In the next section, we’ll look at the CAF for Azure.