Azure Naming Standards

Consistent naming conventions are critical for managing Azure resources at scale. Well-defined standards improve automation, clarity, and governance, especially in enterprise and DevOps environments.

Key Principles

• Consistency: Use the same pattern across all resource types and environments.

• Readability: Names should be easy to understand for engineers and automation tools.

• Scalability: Support for multiple environments, regions, and projects.

• Automation-Friendly: Avoid special characters and use lowercase where required (e.g., storage accounts).

Recommended Naming Pattern

<resource-type-abbr>-<app/project>-<env>-<region>-<instance>

• resource-type-abbr: Short code for the resource type (see table below)

• app/project: Application or project name

• env: Environment (dev, test, prod, qa, uat, etc.)

• region: Azure region short code (e.g., weu for West Europe, eus for East US)

• instance: Optional numeric or descriptive instance (e.g., 01, db, web)

Common Abbreviations

Resource Type	Abbreviation
Resource Group	rg
Virtual Network	vnet
Subnet	sn
Network Interface	nic
Network Security Grp	nsg
Virtual Machine	vm
Storage Account	st
Key Vault	kv
App Service	app
SQL Server	sql
SQL Database	sqldb
Cosmos DB	cdb
Function App	func
Application Gateway	agw
Firewall	fw
Log Analytics	log

Real-Life Examples

• Resource Group: rg-myapp-prod-weu

• VM: vm-myapp-dev-weu-01

• Storage Account: stmyappprdweu01 (lowercase, no dashes)

• Key Vault: kv-myapp-prod-weu

• App Service: app-myapp-test-eus

• SQL Database: sqldb-myapp-prod-weu

Automation Example (Terraform)

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "main" {
  name     = "rg-myapp-prod-weu"
  location = "westeurope"
}

resource "azurerm_storage_account" "main" {
  name                     = "stmyappprdweu01"
  resource_group_name      = azurerm_resource_group.main.name
  location                 = azurerm_resource_group.main.location
  account_tier             = "Standard"
  account_replication_type = "LRS"
}

Automation Example (Azure CLI)

az group create --name rg-myapp-prod-weu --location westeurope
az storage account create --name stmyappprdweu01 --resource-group rg-myapp-prod-weu --location westeurope --sku Standard_LRS

Best Practices

• Use Microsoft's official naming rules as a baseline.
• Document your naming convention and enforce it with Azure Policy or CI/CD checks.

• Use tags for additional metadata (e.g., owner, cost center, environment).

• Avoid using personally identifiable information (PII) in resource names.

Common Pitfalls

• Inconsistent abbreviations or region codes.

• Exceeding Azure's resource name length limits.

• Using unsupported characters (e.g., uppercase, special symbols).

Joke: Why did the Azure VM get a short name? Because it couldn't handle the character limit!