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Azure Landing Zone for Beginners: From Empty Subscription to Ready-for-Prod in a Weekend

ByR2C Admin

Introduction: Your Weekend Cloud Transformation

The cloud offers unparalleled flexibility and scale, but diving into a fresh Azure subscription without a plan can quickly lead to complexity, security gaps, and unmanageable costs. That’s where the Azure Landing Zone concept comes in. It’s Microsoft’s guidance for setting up a well-architected, secure, and scalable environment that’s ready to host your applications and data.

This guide is for beginners – those who have an empty Azure subscription and a weekend to spare. We’ll walk you through the essential steps to lay down a robust foundation, making your Azure environment “ready for production” in just a few focused hours. No prior enterprise architecture degree required!

What is an Azure Landing Zone and Why Do You Need It?

An Azure Landing Zone is essentially a predefined, secure, and governed environment designed to host your workloads. It’s built on Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and addresses critical concerns like:

  • Security: Implementing baselines for network segmentation, access control, and threat protection.
  • Governance: Setting up policies, cost management, and resource organization.
  • Scalability: Designing a network and subscription structure that can grow with your needs.
  • Identity: Integrating with your existing identity systems or establishing new ones.
  • Operations: Laying the groundwork for monitoring and management.

Think of it as building a house. You wouldn’t just drop furniture on bare land. You’d pour a foundation, erect walls, install plumbing and electricity. An Azure Landing Zone is that robust foundation for your cloud house.

The Weekend Plan: Your Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s our action plan for your weekend Azure transformation. We’ll focus on the core components you can realistically set up.

Day 1: Foundation & Identity

Step 1: Azure Subscription Design & Management Groups

An empty subscription is your starting point. For a beginner, we’ll focus on a single subscription initially, but understand the concept of Management Groups for future scalability.

  • Your Root Management Group: All your subscriptions fall under a “Tenant Root Group” by default. This is where you’ll apply high-level policies.
  • Create Management Groups (Optional but Recommended): Even with one subscription, creating a simple hierarchy (e.g., Platform, Landing Zones) prepares you for growth. For this weekend, we’ll keep it simple: one subscription, but know that Management Groups are your enterprise-scale solution.

Action: Navigate to Management Groups in the Azure portal and create a Platform Management Group under your Tenant Root. Move your current subscription under this Platform MG.

Step 2: Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity is the cornerstone of security. Azure Active Directory (now Microsoft Entra ID) is your identity provider.

  • Understand Entra ID: Your Azure subscription is already linked to an Entra ID tenant. This is where your users, groups, and applications will reside.
  • Create Administrative Users/Groups: Avoid using the global administrator account for daily tasks.
    1. Create a dedicated security group for Azure Administrators (e.g., Azure-Admins).
    2. Create a personal user account for yourself (if you’re currently using a global admin or root account) and add it to Azure-Admins.
    3. Assign the Owner role at the subscription scope to your Azure-Admins group. This grants necessary permissions.
  • Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): This is non-negotiable for all administrative accounts.
    • Action: Go to Microsoft Entra ID > Properties > Manage Security Defaults and enable security defaults for MFA, or set up Conditional Access policies if you have Entra ID P1/P2.

Day 2: Networking, Governance & Security Baselines

Step 3: Network Topology (Hub-Spoke Model)

A robust network is crucial. The Hub-Spoke model provides centralized control and simplified connectivity.

  • The Hub VNet: This is your central network, hosting shared services like firewalls, VPN gateways, and DNS.
    1. Create a new Resource Group: rg-network-hub-prod-eastus (or your preferred region).
    2. Create a Virtual Network (VNet) in this RG: vnet-hub-prod-eastus. Choose an appropriate address space (e.g., 10.100.0.0/16).
    3. Create at least two subnets: GatewaySubnet (for VPN/ExpressRoute) and AzureFirewallSubnet (for your firewall).
  • A Spoke VNet (Your First Workload VNet): This is where your applications will live.
    1. Create a new Resource Group: rg-app01-prod-eastus.
    2. Create a VNet: vnet-app01-prod-eastus (e.g., 10.10.0.0/16).
    3. Create a subnet for your application: snet-web-prod-eastus.
  • VNet Peering: Connect your Spoke VNet to your Hub VNet. This allows resources in the spoke to communicate with shared services in the hub.
    • Action: Go to your vnet-hub-prod-eastus and add peering to vnet-app01-prod-eastus (and vice-versa).

Additional Resources:

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