The high-level architecture components that make up Azure are Management Groups, Subscriptions, Resource Groups, and Resources. Management Groups are at the highest level and are used to organize Azure subscriptions. Below Management Groups are Subscriptions. The Management Groups can then be used to apply specific policy definitions to any subscriptions contained in the Management Group. Management Groups, Subscriptions, Resource Groups, and Resources all work together to provide the customer-facing experience that is Microsoft Azure in the cloud.
Top-Down Hierarchy Of Management Groups
The highest level of these Azure architectural components is the Management Group. Management Groups contain one or more subscriptions. Inside of Subscriptions are Resource Groups. Resource Groups belong to exactly one Subscription. A Subscription can have many resource groups, but a resource group may belong to only one subscription. The Resources themselves (the Azure cloud services) can be grouped together in Resource Groups.
Azure Management Group
Management Groups in Azure exist above the Subscription level. Each directory is given a single top-level management group known as Root. This is a single boundary for management. If you have multiple subscriptions, they would all belong to the top-level management group. Management groups can be created for a subset of subscriptions as well, making it possible to manage that subset of subscriptions together.
Azure Subscriptions
A subscription in Azure is a logical container used to provision cloud services. Companies can create multiple subscriptions if single subscription limits are reached. Every service in a subscription has certain limits and if there is a need for extremely high scale, more than one subscription may be needed. The other reason for having more than one subscription is to have multiple payment options. In addition, you can isolate resources between various projects or departments in different subscriptions. They help you organize access to Azure resources and determine how resource usage is reported, billed, and paid for.
Azure Resource Groups
Even if you’re new to Azure you likely have heard about the concept of Resource Groups. They are an important building block within Azure that makes it possible to group related services together to provide a complete solution. Resource Groups are often used to group resources that share the same resource lifecycle.
Azure Resources
Resources in Azure are the acutal services themselves that you want to make use of. We’ve talked about many of them in these latest Azure Tutorials. Resources include things like virtual machines, storage accounts, virtual networks, or databases.
Organizing Azure Resources
Keeping your Azure Resources organized is rule number 1 for ensuring a successful cloud operation. Management Groups, Subscriptions, and Resource Groups give you the power to manage your Azure Resources in a sane and efficient manner.
- Management Group
- Can be used to aggregate policy and initiative assignments via Azure Policy
- Can contain multiple subscriptions
- All new subscriptions will be placed under the root management group by default
- Subscriptions
- Are a unit of management, billing, and scale within Azure
- Serve as a management boundary for assigning Azure policies, governance, and isolation
- Resource Groups
- A container that holds resources with a common lifecycle
- Resources
- Cloud Services that can belong to 1 Resource Group
Learn more:
- Differences Between Azure Management (jaacostan.com)
- Azure Governance Management Groups Overview (docs.microsoft.com)
- How To Effectively Use Azure Management Groups Subscriptions And Resource Groups (cloudacademy.com)
- Azure Azure Management Groups And Subscriptions (pragimtech.com)
- Azure Resource Groups (parkmycloud.com)
- Organize And Manage Multiple Azure Subscriptions And Resources With Azure Management Groups (medium.com)
- Explaining The Hierarchy Of Azure Management Groups And Subscriptions (testpreptraining.com)
- What Leaders Should Know About Azure Management Groups (msdynamicsworld.com)
