Executive Focus: Governing Azure

• IT-wide governance of Azure resources, with visibility at the CIO level, is critical to effective, secure, and legally compliant IT operations.
• Azure governance ensures that the use of Azure resources complies with enterprise standards and helps achieve organizational objectives, including cost management.
• Executives should ensure IT is leveraging Azure tools and governance processes to protect the organization and its assets.

Governance is a critical part of IT management and operations. IT governance, through frameworks, metrics, and reporting, ensures that all IT activities effectively contribute to IT goals while remaining secure and compliant with enterprise standards, including legal requirements. As organizations increasingly rely on Azure, governance of these cloud resources, including applications, data, and networks—and their associated processes, including development, compliance, and security—assumes greater importance. Poorly governed Azure estates can create a variety of negative consequences, such as unexpected costs, additional required headcount, unreliable applications, and insecure or noncompliant applications.