11 Rules to Define Naming Convention for Azure Resources
11 Rules to Define Naming Convention for Azure Resources
Naming Convention for Azure Resources : It is important to have a good and consistent naming convention to be defined for Azure resources, which helps in organizing resources clearly and logically. This makes it easier for teams to find, manage, and operate resources, reducing the risk of errors and inefficiencies. A well-defined naming convention ensures consistency across different environments such as development, testing, pre-production, production, etc. It helps in reducing the risk of deploying the resources to the wrong environment or misconfiguring resources.
You can follow the naming convention approach explained in this article. Alternatively, feel free to define your own naming convention as per your company’s policies.
1. Use a Standard Naming Convention
While defining the naming convention for the Azure Resources define a standard prefix and suffix for your resources to make them easily identifiable. It is important to define a consistent naming convention across all resources within your Azure environment. This should include a structured approach to prefixing and suffixing resource names with identifiers that help in quickly identifying the type, function, and ownership of the resource. Defining a standardized naming convention helps avoid conflicts, ensuring consistency, and easing the automation of resource management tasks.
2. Keep Names Short and Meaningful
In Azure, resource names have character limits, so it is important to ensure that the resource names are concise yet meaningful, typically using abbreviations. Therefore, while defining the abbreviations the resource names must still convey meaningful information about the resource. Use abbreviations that are widely understood within your organization or in the industry and avoid unnecessary complexity.
For example, use vm as an abbreviation for a Virtual Machine, use vnet as an abbreviation for a Virtual Network, use sa as an abbreviation for the southeast region, use ae as an abbreviation for the Australia East region, etc. Similarly, you can use abbreviations for other resources.
3. Include Resource Type
While defining the Azure Resource name it would be good if you incorporate the resource type such as vm for Virtual Machine, nsg for Network Security Group, sql for SQL Database, etc. Adding them to the resource name helps in the quick identification and categorization of resources, especially when viewing them in bulk or in automation scripts. It also assists in avoiding ambiguity across different resource types. Take an example if the name that you have defined has the resource name VM, NSG, vNET, DB, SQL, etc then it will be used to easily identify the type of resources.
4. Use Environment Indicators
A best practice in the Organizations is to create multiple environment such as Test, Development, Pre-Production, Production, etc. Every organization has different policies to define the environments. These environments are primarily used to test and rollout the code before deploying the code to the production environment. Moreover, in some Organizations multiple environments are created as a replica of Production environment for testing purpose.
Normally, when we deploy resources in Azure we create multiple environments and deploy resources in those environments. By denote the environment in which a resource is deployed using abbreviations such as dev for development, pp for pre-production, qa for staging, or prod for production. This helps differentiate between resources that might otherwise look similar across environments and prevents accidental usage or deployment into the wrong environment.
5. Avoid Special Characters
While Azure supports certain special characters, it’s best to stick to alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Avoid using characters like spaces, periods, or other special symbols that can cause issues in automation scripts, API calls, or when integrating with other systems.
6. Consider Geographical Location
Include the Azure region or geography (e.g., useast, westeurope) where the resource is deployed. It helps in identifying the region or geography where the resource is deployed, which helps in cost optimisation, configuring high availability, meeting compliance requirements, etc. It also helps in avoiding confusion where multiple resources are deployed across various regions and geographies.
7. Use a Consistent Case
Stick to a consistent case style such as lowercase (preferred and recommended) or camelCase across all resources to avoid confusion and errors. Lowercase is preferred and recommended as for some of the resource types you cannot use the upper case of camelCase style. It also prevents errors and failures where case-sensitive resource names are required such as in scripts, etc.
I always prefer to use lowercase as not only helps in avoiding confusion but also helps in maintaining a consistent case.
8. Incorporate Instance Numbers or IDs
Considering the scenarios where multiple resources are deployed or where scalability is required in those scenarios, it is recommended to use the sequential number or unique identifier such as vm01, vm02, etc. Moreover, it is always recommended to use the sequential numbers and not to use the random numbers. It helps in identifying the new resources added to the environment.
For example, if in your environment you have deployed 10 Virtual Machines and named them from VM01 to VM10. Now when you add 10 more VMs in your environment and name them from VM11 to VM20, in that case it is easy to identify the new resources added to the environment.
9. Include Business Units or Projects
If applicable, include the name of the business unit, department, or project in the naming convention to identify ownership such as for an HR Virtual Machine name can be hr-vm01. It also helps in billing, reporting, assigning resources to the project, delegating access, etc.
10. Plan for Hierarchical Naming Convention
When defining the Naming Convention for Azure Resources ensure the naming convention is defined by following the hierarchical naming convention. Defining the hierarchical naming convention helps in identifying the resource and it’s hierarchy. Such as if you are deploying a resource group then do mention rg in the resource name, similarly if you are creating a virtual network then mention vnet in the resource name.
11. Document the Naming Convention
A good documentation is very critical for any Company or the department. It is critical to create detailed documentation that outlines the naming convention, rules and logic used to define the name of the resources. This documentation should include examples, explanations for each component of the naming structure, and guidelines on how to handle exceptions.
Regularly update and share this document with all relevant teams and stakeholders to ensure they all adhere to the naming standards. Most importantly make sure you also mention the point of contact if anyone has any questions or needs clarifications while defining the name of the resources.
Moreover, while while defining the naming convention for Azure Resources it is important to clearly define the glossary of all the abbreviations used it the environment and ensure it is accessible for entire organization.