ALZ Policies

Policies included in Azure landing zones reference implementations

Azure Policy and deployIfNotExist enables autonomy in the platform, and reduces operational burden as you scale your deployments and subscriptions in the Azure landing zone architecture. The primary purpose is to ensure that subscriptions and resources are compliant, while empowering application teams to use their own preferred tools/clients to deploy.

Please refer to Policy Driven Governance for further information.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALZ priority is to provide a secure by default, Zero Trust aligned, configuration, and occasionally we will rely on -preview policies in our default assignments to meet our core objective. These preview policies are maintained by the Azure product owners and versioning is not in our control, however, we feel they are sufficiently important to be included in our releases. If the inclusion of preview policies is of concern, please review all ALZ default initiative assignments and remove any -preview policies that you are not comfortable with.

FAQ and Tips

We have added a dedicated ALZ Policy FAQ and Tips based on common issues raised or questions asked by customers and partners.

Why are there custom policy definitions as part of Azure landing zones?

We work with - and learn from our customers and partners to ensure that we evolve and enhance the reference implementations to meet customer requirements. The primary approach of the policies as part of Azure landing zones is to be proactive (deployIfNotExist, and modify), and preventive (deny). We are continuously moving these policies to built-ins.

What Azure Policies does Azure landing zone provide additionally to those already built-in?

There are around 114 custom Azure Policy Definitions included and around 12 Custom Azure Policy Initiatives included as part of the Azure Landing Zones implementation that add on to those already built-in within each Azure customers tenant.

All custom Azure Policy Definitions and Initiatives are the same across all 3 implementation options for Azure landing zones; Terraform Module, Bicep Modules, Azure landing zone portal accelerator.

This is because the single source of truth is the Enterprise-Scale repo that both the Terraform and Bicep implementation options pull from to build their lib folders respectively.

For a complete list of all custom and built-in policies deployed within an Azure landing zone deployment, please refer to the following section.

Our goal is always to try and use built-in policies where available and also work with product teams to adopt our custom policies and make them built-in, which takes time. This means there will always be a requirement for custom policies.

Why are managed identities deployed as part of the ALZ policies?

Managed Identities provide an alternative way to access Azure resources without having to manage credentials. They are created as a part of the ALZ policies mainly for policies that have the deployIfNotExists (DINE) effect in this initiative. The managed identities are used in order to remediate resources that are not compliant with the policy. For further information on how remediation works with access control, please refer to the following documentation: Remediate non-compliant resources - Azure Policy | Microsoft

AzAdvertizer Integration

We have worked with the creator of AzAdvertizer to integrate all of the custom Azure Policy Definitions and Initiatives as part of Azure landing zones into it to help customers use the tool to look at the policies further in an easy to use tool that is popular in the community.

On either the Policy or Initiative section of the site, set the 'Type' column drop down (last one on the right hand side) to 'ALZ' and you will see all the policies as mentioned above in the tool for you to investigate further.

AzAdvertizer also updates once per day!

What policy definitions are assigned within the Azure landing zones (Custom & Built-in)?

As part of a default deployment configuration, policy and policy set definitions are deployed at multiple levels within the Azure landing zone Management Group hierarchy as depicted within the below diagram.

The subsequent sections will provide a summary of policy sets and policy set definitions applied at each level of the Management Group hierarchy.

NOTE: Although the below sections will define which policy definitions/sets are applied at specific scopes, please remember that policy will inherit within your management group hierarchy.

For convenience, an Excel version of the below information is available here or click the icon (last updated April 2023).

Intermediate Root

This management group is a parent to all the other management groups created within the default Azure landing zone configuration. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on assignment of security and monitoring best practices to ensure compliance and reduced operational overhead.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 9 Policy Definitions 2

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Intermediate Root Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Deploy Microsoft Defender for Cloud configuration	Deploy Microsoft Defender for Cloud configuration	Policy Definition Set, Custom	Configures all the MDFC settings, such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud per individual service, security contacts, and export from MDFC to Log Analytics workspace	DeployIfNotExists
[Preview]: Deploy Microsoft Defender for Endpoint agent	[Preview]: Deploy Microsoft Defender for Endpoint agent	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	Deploy Microsoft Defender for Endpoint agent on applicable images.	DeployIfNotExists
Deploy-Resource-Diag	Deploy Diagnostic Settings to Azure Services	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy set deploys the configurations of application Azure resources to forward diagnostic logs and metrics to an Azure Log Analytics workspace.	DeployIfNotExists
Enable Monitoring in Azure Security Center	Azure Security Benchmark	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	The Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark initiative represents the policies and controls implementing security recommendations defined in Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark v1, see https://aka.ms/azsecbm. This also serves as the Azure Security Center default policy initiative. You can directly assign this initiative, or manage its policies and compliance results within Azure Security Center.	Audit, AuditIfNotExists, Disabled
Enable Azure Monitor for VMs	Enable Azure Monitor for VMs	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	Enable Azure Monitor for the virtual machines (VMs) in the specified scope (management group, subscription or resource group). Takes Log Analytics workspace as parameter	DeployIfNotExists, AuditIfNotExists
Enable Azure Monitor for Virtual Machine Scale Sets	Enable Azure Monitor for Virtual Machine Scale Sets	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	Enable Azure Monitor for the Virtual Machine Scale Sets in the specified scope (Management group, Subscription or resource group). Takes Log Analytics workspace as parameter. Note: if your scale set upgradePolicy is set to Manual, you need to apply the extension to the all VMs in the set by calling upgrade on them. In CLI this would be az vmss update-instances.	DeployIfNotExists, AuditIfNotExists
Configure Azure Defender to be enabled on SQL Servers and SQL Managed Instances	Configure Azure Defender to be enabled on SQL Servers and SQL Managed Instances	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	Enable Azure Defender on your SQL Servers and SQL Managed Instances to detect anomalous activities indicating unusual and potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit databases.	DeployIfNotExists
Configure Advanced Threat Protection to be enabled on open-source relational databases	Configure Advanced Threat Protection to be enabled on open-source relational databases	Policy Definition Set, Built-in	Enable Advanced Threat Protection on your non-Basic tier open-source relational databases to detect anomalous activities indicating unusual and potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit databases. See https://aka.ms/AzDforOpenSourceDBsDocu.	DeployIfNotExists
Deploy Diagnostic Settings for Activity Log to Log Analytics workspace	Configure Azure Activity logs to stream to specified Log Analytics workspace	Policy Definition, Built-in	Deploys the diagnostic settings for Azure Activity to stream subscriptions audit logs to a Log Analytics workspace to monitor subscription-level events	DeployIfNotExists
Deny the Deployment of Classic Resources	Not allowed resource types	Policy Definition, Built-in	Denies deployment of classic resource types under the assigned scope	Deny
Audit-UnusedResourcesCostOptimization	Audit-UnusedResourcesCostOptimization	Policy Definition Set, Custom	Optimize cost by detecting unused but chargeable resources. Leverage this Azure Policy Initiative as a cost control tool to reveal orphaned resources that are contributing cost.	Audit
Deny Virtual Machines and Virtual Machine Scale Sets from not using OS Managed Disks	Deny Virtual Machines and Virtual Machine Scale Sets from not using OS Managed Disks	Policy Definition, Custom	Deny virtual machines not using managed disk. It checks the managedDisk property on virtual machine OS Disk fields.	Deny

Platform

This management group contains all the platform child management groups, like management, connectivity, and identity. There are currently no policies assigned at this management group

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 1 Policy Definitions 0

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Enforce recommended guardrails for Azure Key Vault	Enforce recommended guardrails for Azure Key Vault	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy initiative enforces minimum guardrails for Azure Key Vault: Key vaults should have soft delete enabled (Deny) Key vaults should have purge protection enabled (Deny) Key Vault secrets should have an expiration date (Audit) Key Vault keys should have an expiration date (Audit) Azure Key Vault should have firewall enabled (Audit) Certificates should have the specified lifetime action triggers (Audit) Keys should have more than the specified number of days before expiration (Audit < 90 days) Secrets should have more than the specified number of days before expiration (Audit < 90 days)	Audit, Deny

Connectivity

This management group contains a dedicated subscription for connectivity. This subscription will host the Azure networking resources required for the platform, like Azure Virtual WAN, Azure Firewall, and Azure DNS private zones. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on Azure DDoS Protection.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 0 Policy Definitions 1

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Connectivity Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Virtual networks should be protected by Azure DDoS Network Protection	Virtual networks should be protected by Azure DDoS Network Protection	Policy Definition, Built-in	Protect your virtual networks against volumetric and protocol attacks with Azure DDoS Network Protection. For more information, visit https://aka.ms/ddosprotectiondocs.	Modify

Management

This management group contains a dedicated subscription for management, monitoring, and security. This subscription will host an Azure Log Analytics workspace, including associated solutions, and an Azure Automation account. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on the deployment and configuration of the Log Analytics Workspace.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 0 Policy Definitions 1

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Management Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Deploy-Log-Analytics	Configure Log Analytics workspace and automation account to centralize logs and monitoring	Policy Definition, Built-in	Deploy resource group containing Log Analytics workspace and linked automation account to centralize logs and monitoring.	DeployIfNotExists

Identity

This management group contains a dedicated subscription for identity. This subscription is a placeholder for Windows Server Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) virtual machines (VMs) or Azure Active Directory Domain Services. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on hardening and management of resources in the identity subscription.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 0 Policy Definitions 4

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Identity Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Deny the creation of public IP	Not allowed resource types	Policy Definition, Built-in	This policy denies creation of Public IPs under the assigned scope. Single parameter value for listOfResourceTypesNotAllowed which is Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses	Deny
Management port access from the Internet should be blocked	Management port access from the Internet should be blocked	Policy Definition, Custom	This policy denies any network security rule that allows management port access from Internet (Default port 22, 3389).	Deny
Subnets should have a Network Security Group	Subnets should have a Network Security Group	Policy Definition, Custom	This policy denies the creation of a subnet without a Network Security Group. NSG help to protect traffic across subnet-level.	Deny
Configure backup on virtual machines without a given tag to a new recovery services vault with a default policy	Configure backup on virtual machines without a given tag to a new recovery services vault with a default policy	Policy Definition, Built-in	Enforce backup for all virtual machines by deploying a recovery services vault in the same location and resource group as the virtual machine.	DeployIfNotExists

Landing Zones

This is the parent management group for all the landing zone child management groups. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on ensuring workloads residing under this hierarchy are secure and compliant.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 3 Policy Definitions 14

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Landing Zones Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Deny or Deploy and append TLS requirements and SSL enforcement on resources without Encryption in transit	Deny or Deploy and append TLS requirements and SSL enforcement on resources without Encryption in transit	Policy Definition Set, Custom	Description TBC	Audit, AuditIfNotExists, DeployIfNotExists, Deny
Enforce recommended guardrails for Azure Key Vault	Enforce recommended guardrails for Azure Key Vault	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy initiative enforces minimum guardrails for Azure Key Vault: Key vaults should have soft delete enabled (Deny) Key vaults should have purge protection enabled (Deny) Key Vault secrets should have an expiration date (Audit) Key Vault keys should have an expiration date (Audit) Azure Key Vault should have firewall enabled (Audit) Certificates should have the specified lifetime action triggers (Audit) Keys should have more than the specified number of days before expiration (Audit < 90 days) Secrets should have more than the specified number of days before expiration (Audit < 90 days)	Audit, Deny
Enforce Azure Compute Security Benchmark compliance auditing	Enforce Azure Compute Security Benchmark compliance auditing	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy initiative enables Azure Compute Security Basline compliance auditing for Windows and Linux virtual machines.	AuditIfNotExists
Management port access from the Internet should be blocked	Management port access from the Internet should be blocked	Policy Definition, Custom	This policy denies any network security rule that allows management port access from Internet (Default port 22, 3389).	Deny
Subnets should have a Network Security Group	Subnets should have a Network Security Group	Policy Definition, Custom	This policy denies the creation of a subnet without a Network Security Group. NSG help to protect traffic across subnet-level.	Deny
Network interfaces should disable IP forwarding	Network interfaces should disable IP forwarding	Policy Definition, Built-in	This policy denies the network interfaces which enabled IP forwarding. The setting of IP forwarding disables Azure's check of the source and destination for a network interface.	Deny
Secure transfer to storage accounts should be enabled	Secure transfer to storage accounts should be enabled	Policy Definition, Built-in	Audit requirement of Secure transfer in your storage account. Secure transfer is an option that forces your storage account to accept requests only from secure connections (HTTPS). Use of HTTPS ensures authentication between the server and the service and protects data in transit from network layer attacks such as man-in-the-middle, eavesdropping, and session-hijacking	Audit
Deploy Azure Policy Add-on to Azure Kubernetes Service clusters	Deploy Azure Policy Add-on to Azure Kubernetes Service clusters	Policy Definition, Built-in	Use Azure Policy Add-on to manage and report on the compliance state of your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters.	DeployIfNotExists
Configure SQL servers to have auditing enabled to Log Analytics workspace	Configure SQL servers to have auditing enabled to Log Analytics workspace	Policy Definition, Built-in	To ensure the operations performed against your SQL assets are captured, SQL servers should have auditing enabled. If auditing is not enabled, this policy will configure auditing events to flow to the specified Log Analytics workspace.	DeployIfNotExists
Deploy Threat Detection on SQL servers	Configure Azure Defender to be enabled on SQL servers	Policy Definition, Built-in	Enable Azure Defender on your Azure SQL Servers to detect anomalous activities indicating unusual and potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit databases.	DeployIfNotExists
Deploy TDE on SQL servers	Deploy TDE on SQL servers	Policy Definition, Built-in	This policy ensures that Transparent Data Encryption is enabled on SQL Servers	DeployIfNotExists
Configure backup on virtual machines without a given tag to a new recovery services vault with a default policy	Configure backup on virtual machines without a given tag to a new recovery services vault with a default policy	Policy Definition, Built-in	Enforce backup for all virtual machines by deploying a recovery services vault in the same location and resource group as the virtual machine. Doing this is useful when different application teams in your organization are allocated separate resource groups and need to manage their own backups and restores.	DeployIfNotExists
Virtual networks should be protected by Azure DDoS Network Protection	Virtual networks should be protected by Azure DDoS Network Protection	Policy Definition, Built-in	Protect your virtual networks against volumetric and protocol attacks with Azure DDoS Network Protection .	Modify
Kubernetes cluster should not allow privileged containers	Kubernetes cluster should not allow privileged containers	Policy Definition, Built-in	Do not allow privileged containers creation in a Kubernetes cluster. This recommendation is part of CIS 5.2.1 which is intended to improve the security of your Kubernetes environments. This policy is generally available for Kubernetes Service (AKS), and preview for AKS Engine and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.	Deny
Kubernetes clusters should not allow container privilege escalation	Kubernetes clusters should not allow container privilege escalation	Policy Definition, Built-in	Do not allow containers to run with privilege escalation to root in a Kubernetes cluster. This recommendation is part of CIS 5.2.5 which is intended to improve the security of your Kubernetes environments. This policy is generally available for Kubernetes Service (AKS), and preview for AKS Engine and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.	Audit
Kubernetes clusters should be accessible only over HTTPS	Kubernetes clusters should be accessible only over HTTPS	Policy Definition, Built-in	Use of HTTPS ensures authentication and protects data in transit from network layer eavesdropping attacks. This capability is currently generally available for Kubernetes Service (AKS), and in preview for AKS Engine and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.	Deny
Web Application Firewall (WAF) should be enabled for Application Gateway	Web Application Firewall (WAF) should be enabled for Application Gateway	Policy Definition, Built-in	Deploy Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) in front of public facing web applications for additional inspection of incoming traffic. Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities such as SQL injections, Cross-Site Scripting, local and remote file executions. You can also restrict access to your web applications by countries, IP address ranges, and other http(s) parameters via custom rules.	Audit

Corp

This management group is for corporate landing zones. This group is for workloads that require connectivity or hybrid connectivity with the corporate network via the hub in the connectivity subscription. Policy assignment is predominantly focused on ensuring workloads residing under this hierarchy are secure and compliant.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 2 Policy Definitions 3

The table below provides the specific Custom and Built-in policy definitions and policy definitions sets assigned at the Corp Management Group.

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Public network access should be disabled for PaaS services	Public network access should be disabled for PaaS services	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy initiative is a group of policies that prevents creation of Azure PaaS services with exposed public endpoints	Deny
Configure Azure PaaS services to use private DNS zones	Configure Azure PaaS services to use private DNS zones	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This policy initiative is a group of policies that ensures private endpoints to Azure PaaS services are integrated with Azure Private DNS zones	DeployIfNotExists
Deny network interfaces having a public IP associated	Network interfaces should not have public IPs	Policy Definition, Built-in	This policy denies network interfaces from having a public IP associated to it under the assigned scope.	Deny
Deny the deployment of vWAN/ER/VPN gateway resources	Not allowed resource types	Policy Definition, Built-in	Denies deployment of vWAN/ER/VPN gateway resources in the Corp landing zone.	Deny
Audit Private Link Private DNS Zone resources	Audit the creation of Private Link Private DNS Zones	Policy Definition, Custom	Audits the deployment of Private Link Private DNS Zone resources in the Corp landing zone.	Audit

Online

This management group is for online landing zones. This group is for workloads that might require direct internet inbound/outbound connectivity or for workloads that might not require a virtual network. There are currently no policies assigned at this management group.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 0 Policy Definitions 0

Decommissioned

This management group is for landing zones that are being cancelled. Cancelled landing zones will be moved to this management group before deletion by Azure after 30-60 days.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 1 Policy Definitions 0

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Enforce ALZ Decommissioned Guardrails	Enforce ALZ Decommissioned Guardrails	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This initiative will help enforce and govern subscriptions that are placed within the decommissioned Management Group as part of your Subscription decommissioning process. Policies included: Deny the deployment of new resources Deploy an auto VM shutdown policy at UTC 00:00	Enforce

Sandbox

This management group is for subscriptions that will only be used for testing and exploration by an organization. These subscriptions will be securely disconnected from the corporate and online landing zones. Sandboxes also have a less restrictive set of policies assigned to enable testing, exploration, and configuration of Azure services.

Management Group	Policy Configuration
	Policy Type Count Policy Definition Sets 1 Policy Definitions 0

Assignment Name	Definition Name	Policy Type	Description	Effect(s)
Enforce ALZ Sandbox Guardrails	Enforce ALZ Sandbox Guardrails	Policy Definition Set, Custom	This initiative will help enforce and govern subscriptions that are placed within the Sandobx Management Group. Policies included: Deny vNET peering across subscriptions Deny the deployment of vWAN/ER/VPN gateways.	Enforce

Versioning

Each policy definition and initiative contains a version in its metadata section:

"metadata": {
   "version": "1.0.0",
   "category": "{categoryName}",
   "source": "https://github.com/Azure/Enterprise-Scale/",
   "alzCloudEnvironments": [
      "AzureCloud",
      "AzureChinaCloud",
      "AzureUSGovernment"
   ]
}

To track and review policy and initiative versions, please refer to AzAdvertizer.

This version is incremented according to the following rules (subject to change):

• Major Version (1.0.0)
  • Policy Definitions
    • Rule logic changes
    • ifNotExists existence condition changes
    • Major changes to the effect of the policy (i.e. adding a new resource to a deployment)
  • Policy Set Definitions
    • Addition or removal of a policy definition from the policy set
• Minor Version (1.0.0)
  • Policy Definitions
    • Changes to effect details that don't meet the major version criteria
    • Adding new parameter allowed values
    • Adding new parameters (with default values)
    • Other minor changes to existing parameters
  • Policy Set Definitions
    • Adding new parameter allowed values
    • Adding new parameters (with default values)
    • Other minor changes to existing parameters
• Patch Version (1.0.0)
  • Policy Definitions
    • String changes (displayName, description, etc…)
    • Other metadata changes
  • Policy Set Definitions
    • String changes (displayName, description, etc…)
    • Other metadata changes
• Suffix
  • Append "-preview" to the version if the policy is in a preview state
    • Example: 1.3.2-preview
  • Append "-deprecated" to the version if the policy is in a deprecated state
    • Example: 1.3.2-deprecated

Preview and deprecated policies

This section aims to explain what it means when a built-in policy has a state of ‘preview’ or ‘deprecated’.

Policies can be in preview because a property (alias) referenced in the policy definition is in preview, or the policy is newly introduced and would like additional customer feedback. A policy may get deprecated when the property (alias) becomes deprecated & not supported in the resource type's latest API version, or when there is manual migration needed by customers due to a breaking change in a resource type's latest API version.

When a policy gets deprecated or gets out of preview, there is no impact on existing assignments. Existing assignments continue to work as-is. The policy is still evaluated & enforced like normal and continues to produce compliance results.

Here are the changes that occur when a policy gets deprecated:

• Display name is appended with ‘[Deprecated]: ’ prefix, so that customers have awareness to migrate or delete the policy.
• Description gets updated to provide additional information regarding the deprecation with a link to the superseding policy.
• Add supersededBy metadata property to the policy definition with the name of the superseding policy.
• Add deprecated metadata property to the policy definition with value set to true.
• The version number is updated with ‘-deprecated’ suffix. (see Policy Versioning above).

Example (policy snippet of deprecated policy):

   "policyType": "Custom",
   "mode": "Indexed",
   "displayName": "[Deprecated]: Deploy SQL Database vulnerability Assessments",
   "description": "Deploy SQL Database vulnerability Assessments when it not exist in the deployment. Superseded by https://www.azadvertizer.net/azpolicyadvertizer/Deploy-Sql-vulnerabilityAssessments_20230706.html",
   "metadata": {
      "version": "1.0.1-deprecated",
      "category": "SQL",
      "source": "https://github.com/Azure/Enterprise-Scale/",
      "deprecated": true,
      "supersededBy": "Deploy-Sql-vulnerabilityAssessments_20230706",
      "alzCloudEnvironments": [
         "AzureCloud",
         "AzureChinaCloud",
         "AzureUSGovernment"
      ]
   }

NOTE: The name value must not change in the file through deprecation or preview.