Azure Governance Foundation (AGF) is designed to provide clear guidance on how a company can create a well-managed Azure environment by creating the business structures that enable a cloud-first approach (like a Technology Steering Committee and a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) team). The purpose of this guidance is to share the approach and insights of customers who are successfully using similar governing bodies to manage their Azure environments.
The goal of the AGF is to help customers:
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Transform the IT organization into a true partner with the business
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Align work effort to business value
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Senior management…
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Enable teams to realize value quickly
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Create a culture of accountability and execution
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Create a functional Azure governance team (CCoE)
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Well-managed Azure platform aligned with corporate governance standards
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Creation of certified catalog of cloud products
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Increased corporate confidence in Azure
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Follow and agile approach in governing Azure
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Define policies across disciplines and implement those in the form of Azure Policies and other cloud-native mechanisms.
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Design a well-governed and managed Azure environment ready to accept production workloads.
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Increase TTM for workloads deployed in Azure.
The Azure Governance Foundation is for any organization that wants to implement a tested approach to creating governing teams that facilitate a well-managed Azure environment. AGF is best thought of as an extension to the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) which is framework providing enterprise customers a set of tools, guidance, and narratives that help shape technology, business, and people strategies for driving desired business outcomes during their adoption effort. If you have not read the Cloud Adoption Framework, you should begin there and then return to the AGF if you need deeper guidance on the people and process aspects of this approach – which is to say, how to create business structures which will support your journey to cloud.
The AGF is designed for customers who want to transform their IT organizations into strong partners with their businesses. New cloud customers who aren’t quite sure where to start on their transformational journey will benefit from the AGF as well as existing cloud customers who want to improve their efficiency, governance and corporate confidence in the cloud.
Yes, it can. The approach described in the AGF is not specific to any one cloud. In many ways, the approach to management and governance described here is neither new nor profoundly revolutionary. It is simply a common-sense approach to managing assets in a cloud-first world. This approach can be used in AWS or GCP as well as in Azure. Good governance, a culture of accountability and a well-managed environment are not the domain of any one cloud provider.
That said, aspects of the approach described here will be tactical and specific to Azure. The use of Azure Policies, Management Groups and Azure Blueprints are limited to Azure (though similar concepts exist in other clouds). Inasmuch as there is parity across these features and functions in other cloud providers, the information in this guide may be applied to any cloud.
The AGF is not the only governance approach used by successful customers, but it is one approach. The purpose of this guidance is highlighting the AGF approach as a reasonable and appropriate one, especially for customers looking for a place to start. There are other governance approaches that achieve similar outcomes.
To contribute and get started, please visit our contribution guide.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.