Azure naming conventions
When creating resources in Azure it is important to follow a naming convention for ease of search and management.
Resources in Cloud Nine's Azure portal
We have based our naming scheme on Microsoft's examples on MSDN, with slight deviations.
- We have added a client/internal scope prefix.
- We have excluded the Azure region and instance ID unless necessary.
That means the names of all resources created in Azure should follow this pattern:
[client/internal]-[resource type]-[project/workload]-[environment]-[optional: region]-[optional: instance ID]
Shortened resource types
To avoid having to write out the full name every time, like resourcegroup (bad), staticwebapp (bad) or storageaccount (bad), use standardised shortened names. If a short name is missing on this page, add it to the list.
| Resource type | Short name |
|---|---|
| Resource group | rg |
| Storage account | st |
| App service | asvc |
| App service plan | asvcplan |
| Static web app | swa |
| SQL server | sqlserver |
| SQL database | sqldb |
| SQL Elastic Pool | sqlelp |
| Application Insights | appins |
| Key Vault | kv |
| Public IP | pip |
| Virtual machine | vm |
| Virtual network | vnet |
| Virtual network gateway | vgw |
| (Virtual) Disk | vhd |
| Network interface (card) | nic |
| Network security group | nsg |
| Bastion | bastion |
| Private endpoint | pe |
| Private link | plink |
| Management group | mg |
| (Azure) Firewall | fw |
| Managed Identity | mid |
| Azure AI Search | ais |
| (Azure AI) Translator | transl |
| (Azure) Container Registry | acr |
| Action group | actiongroup |
Cloud Nine-owned resources
Cloud Nine's own resources should always be prefixed with cn.
Examples
# A resource group and static web app for the Cloud Nine-owned "CN Docs" project production hosting
cn-rg-cndocs-prod
cn-swa-cndocs-prod
# Resource groups for a client's development back- and frontends
clientname-rg-webbackend-dev
clientname-rg-webfrontend-dev
# A resource group for a client's complete web solution, like an MVC site
clientname-rg-web-dev
# App services for a client's development frontend app, instance 1 & 2
clientname-asvc-webfrontend-dev-001
clientname-asvc-webfrontend-dev-002
# Resource groups for a client's development frontend app, in the Azure "North Europe" and "Sweden" regions
clientname-rg-webfrontend-dev-northeurope
clientname-rg-webfrontend-dev-sweden
# An SQL Server and database instance for the Cloud Nine-owned "Czas" project
cn-sqlserver-czas-prod
cn-sqldb-czas-prod
Exceptions
Storage accounts
Azure storage accounts are not allowed dashes in the name, so they are formatted without.
# A client's storage for the web backend in, development environment
clientnamestwebbackenddev
Azure billing subscriptions
Billing subscriptions do not follow the above format.
Virtual network subnets
Subnets should follow PascalCase naming and does not need any other specification other than their use, e.g. "AzureBastionSubnet".
Renaming resources
Some resources in Azure can be renamed, but some cannot (e.g. resource groups).
Resources in a client's Azure portal
Follow the client's naming convention if there is one, otherwise consider using Microsoft's.