Microsoft Azure Naming Conventions

9 minute read

Accurately representing and naming your resources is essential for security purposes.

In a security incident, it is critical to identify affected systems quickly, what functions those systems support, and the potential business impact.

A useful naming convention composes resource names from important information about each resource. A well-chosen name helps you quickly identify the resource’s type, its associated workload, its deployment environment, and the Azure region hosting it.

Some resource names, such as PaaS services with public endpoints or virtual machine DNS labels, have global scopes, so they must be unique across the Azure platform.

There’s no one size fits all to Azure naming conventions, it needs to suit your organisation, however, it is worth noting that there are limitations to naming rules to Azure resources.

The use of these limitations and scopes have been used to determine the following naming conventions across associated resources.

Casing Name Format
Lowercase {organizationName}-{component}-{resourceTypeshortCode}-{regionShortCode}-{environmentlongcode}

Naming Convention Examples

Environment Application Name Azure Region Azure Service Example Name
Production application1 Australia East App Service company-application1-asvc-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East App Service Environment company-application1-ase-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East App Service Plan company-application1-asp-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Application Gateway company-application1-agw-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Automation Account company-application1-aum-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Availability Set company-application1-avs-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster company-application1-arck-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure Arc enabled server company-application1-arcs-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure Cosmos DB database company-application1-cosmos-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure Data Factory company-application1-adf-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure Search company-application1-srch-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure SQL Database company-application1-sqldb-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure SQL Elastic Pool company-application1-sqlep-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Azure SQL Server company-application1-sql-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Container registry company-application1-cr-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Cosmos DB company-application1-cdb-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Function App company-application1-func-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Gateway connection company-application1-cn-au-e-prod
Test application1 Australia East IoT Central company-application1-iotc-au-e-test
Test application1 Australia East Key Vault company-application1-kv-au-e-test
Test application1 Australia East Load Balancer company-application1-lb-au-e-test
Test application1 Australia East Local Network Gateway company-application1-lgw-au-e-test
Test application1 Australia East Log Analytics workspace company-application1-la-au-e-test
Production application1 Australia East MySQL database company-application1-mysql-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Network Interface company-application1-nic-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Network Security Group company-application1-nsg-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Network Security Group Rule company-application1-nsg-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Public IP Address company-application1-pip-au-e-prod
Production   Australia East Recovery Services vault company-rsv-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Recovery Services Vault - Backup policies company-application1-rsvp-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Resource Group company-application1-rg-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Route table company-application1-route-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Runbooks company-application1-run-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Service Bus - Namespace company-application1-sbns-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East SQL Data Warehouse company-application1-sqldw-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East SQL Managed Instance company-application1-sqlmi-au-e-prod
Production App1 Australia East Storage Account company-pp1-stg-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Subnet company-application1-snet-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Subscription company-application1-sub-prod
Production application1 Australia East Traffic Manager Profile company-application1-tmp-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East User defined route (UDR) company-application1-udr-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Virtual machine scale set company-application1-vmss-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Virtual Network company-application1-vn-au-e-prod
Production application1 Australia East Virtual Network Gateway company-application1-vngw-au-e-prod

Azure Naming - Global

Resource Group

Environment Application Name Azure Region Azure Service Example Name
Production application1 Australia East Resource Group company-application1-rg-au-e-prod

Resource Type Codes

Resource Type Short Code Scope Character Limit
App Service asvc Global 40
App Service Environment ase Resource Group 38
App Service Plan asp Resource Group 40
Application Gateway agw Resource Group 80
Automation Account aum Resource Group 50
Availability Set avs Resource Group 80
Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster arck Resource Group 63
Azure Arc enabled server arcs Resource Group 15
Azure Cosmos DB database cosmos Global 63
Azure Data Factory adf Global 63
Azure Search srch Global 60
Azure SQL Database sqldb Server 128
Azure SQL Elastic Pool sqlep Server 128
Azure SQL Server sql Global 63
Container registry cr Global 50
Cosmos DB cdb Global 50
Function App func Global 40
Gateway connection cn Resource Group 80
IoT Central iotc Global 63
Key Vault kv Global 24
Load Balancer lb Resource Group 80
Local Network Gateway lgw Resource Group 80
Log Analytics workspace la Global 24
MySQL database mysql Global 63
Network Interface nic Resource Group 80
Network Security Group nsg Resource Group 80
Network Security Group Rule nsg Resource Group 80
Public IP Address pip Resource Group 80
Recovery Services vault rsv Resource Group 50
Recovery Services Vault - Backup policies rsvp vault 50
Resource Group rg Global 64
Route table route Resource Group 80
Runbooks run Automation Account 63
Service Bus - Namespace sbns Global 50
SQL Data Warehouse sqldw Global 63
SQL Managed Instance sqlmi Global 63
Storage Account stg Global 24
Subnet snet Virtual Network 80
Subscription sub Account 64
Traffic Manager Profile tmp Resource Group 63
User defined route (UDR) udr Resource Group 80
Virtual Machine vm Resource Group 15
Virtual machine scale set vmss Resource Group 15
Virtual Network vn Resource Group 63
Virtual Network Gateway vngw Resource Group 80

Environment Names

Environment Name Long Code
Development dev
Test test
Staging stg
Production prod

Azure Regions

Azure Region Geo Short Code Datacentre Short Code Short Code
East US us e us-e
East US 2 us e2 us-e2
Central US us c us-c
North Central US us cn us-cn
West Central US us cw us-cw
West US us w us-w
West US 2 us w2 us-w2
Australia East au e au-e
Australia Southeast au se au-se
Australia Central au c au-c
New Zealand North nz n nz-n

Categories:

Updated:

Leave a comment