2.1.3. Configure Azure Policy and Resource Locks

💡 First Principle: Proactive governance through automated policy enforcement and preventative resource locks is essential for maintaining compliance, ensuring consistency, and protecting critical infrastructure from accidental or malicious changes.

Scenario: Your organization requires all new Virtual Machines to be deployed with a specific tag (e.g., "CostCenter"). You also need to prevent any accidental deletion of your production SQL Databases.

This task delves into the practical application of Azure's governance tools. You'll explore how to:

• Implement Azure Policy: Define and apply rules to assess and enforce compliance across your resources at scale.
• Configure Resource Locks: Add an extra layer of protection to prevent accidental or unauthorized modifications or deletions of critical resources.

Mastering these concepts is crucial for the AZ-104 exam, as it assesses your ability to implement and manage governance solutions.

Visual: Azure Policy and Resource Locks in Governance

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⚠️ Common Pitfall: Applying a "Deny" policy without first testing it with an "Audit" effect. This can unexpectedly block legitimate deployments and disrupt operations.

Key Trade-Offs:

• Enforcement (Policy) vs. Protection (Locks): Azure Policy is for enforcing broad organizational standards and compliance at scale. Resource Locks are for protecting specific, critical resources from any change, regardless of permissions.

Reflection Question: How do Azure Policy and Resource Locks, when combined, fundamentally provide a layered defense for enforcing governance and protecting critical resources from unintended changes across your Azure environment?