AzPolicyFactory

AzPolicyFactory — Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions for Azure Policy resources.

Introduction

It can be challenging to manage Azure Policy resources at scale, especially in large organizations with complex governance requirements.

AzPolicyFactory provides a comprehensive set of IaC solutions for testing, deploying and managing Azure Policy resources at scale.

By leveraging these IaC templates and pipelines, organizations can automate the deployment and management of Azure Policy resources, ensuring consistent governance across their Azure environments while reducing manual effort and the risk of misconfigurations.

This repository contains the complete set of IaC solutions for deploying Azure Policy resources, including:

• Bicep Modules for Azure Policy and supporting resources
• Bicep templates for deploying the following Azure Policy resources:
  • Policy Definitions
  • Policy Initiatives
  • Policy Assignments
  • Policy Exemptions
• Azure DevOps pipelines and GitHub Action workflows for:
  • Deploying Azure Policy Definitions, Initiatives, Assignments, and Exemptions
  • PR Validation Code Scan using GitHub Super-Linter
  • PR Validation for Azure Policy Assignment configurations between production and development environments
  • Policy Integration Tests to test assigned policies on real resources in Azure and validate the expected results

The solution automates the entire lifecycle of Azure Policy resources — from code commit through testing and validation to production deployment — ensuring quality and correctness at every stage.

Feature Highlights

The Azure Policy IaC solution in this repository includes the following key features:

• Supports both Azure DevOps pipelines and GitHub Actions workflows for maximum flexibility and compatibility with different CI/CD platforms.
• Comprehensive set of Bicep modules and templates for deploying Azure Policy resources, following best practices for modularity, reusability, and maintainability.
• Comprehensive set of tests and validation at different stages of the CI/CD pipelines to ensure the quality and correctness of the Azure Policy resources being deployed.
• Follows industry best practices for Azure Policy management, safe deployment, code scan, and PR validation to ensure that the Azure Policy resources are deployed in a secure and compliant manner.
• Unit tests for every policy resource being deployed.
• Policy Integration Tests to validate the functionality and effectiveness of the deployed Azure Policy resources in enforcing the desired governance and compliance requirements.

Tests for Azure Policy

The key to successfully implementing Azure Policy is to have confidence that your policies are correctly defined and will work as expected in your environment. The AzPolicyFactory solution is strongly focused in testing every step along the deployment process.

The following Tests are included in the AzPolicyFactory solution:

• Policy Definitions and Initiatives Syntax Tests: Static tests for syntax and best practices validation of policy definitions.
• Bicep Template PSRule Tests: Validate Bicep templates for policy definitions using PSRule for Azure.
• Bicep Template Test Deployments: Validate policy definition Bicep templates against Azure deployment engine to ensure they can be successfully deployed.
• Policy Assignments and Exemptions Syntax Tests: Static tests for syntax validation of the configuration files for policy assignments and exemptions.
• Policy Assignments Environment Consistency Tests: Validate that the policy assignments defined for production and development environments are consistent with each other to ensure the policies being tested in the development environment are the same as those being deployed to production.
• Policy Integration Tests: Deploy real resources in Azure that are expected to either comply or violate the assigned policies, then validate the policy states and policy violation results to ensure the policies are working as expected in the Azure environment.

For more details on the tests included in this solution, please refer to the Tests for Azure Policy documentation.

Recommended Architectural Approach for Azure Policy IaC

A key element for any successful IaC implementation is to have a dedicated dev/test environment that mimics the production environment as closely as possible. This is especially important for Azure Policy resources because they have a direct impact on the governance and compliance of the Azure environment.

We recommend the following architectural approach for implementing Azure Policy IaC:

Single Tenant

Many organizations have a single Microsoft Entra ID tenant, and they manage multiple Azure subscriptions under that tenant. In this case, we recommend separate Management Group hierarchies for production and development environments.

Multiple Tenants

Some organizations have multiple Microsoft Entra ID tenants for different environments (e.g., production, development, testing). In this case, we recommend identical Management Group hierarchies for production and development tenants for the Azure Policy IaC implementation.

❗ Important Note: The design decision for dedicated POLICY development management group hierarchy is explained in the FAQ What is the purpose of dedicated development management group hierarchy in the recommended architecture for Azure Policy IaC implementation?

Get Started

Refer to the Documentation for setup guides and detailed information on the repository structure, CI/CD pipelines, configurations, and included Azure Policy resources.

The documentation provides a comprehensive overview of how to use the AzPolicyFactory solutions in this repository to manage Azure Policy resources effectively.