Effective Azure Subscription Owner Governance and Management

As the owner of an Azure subscription, you have the power to control access and manage resources. This means you can decide who has permission to use your subscription, set limits on their usage, and monitor their activity.

Having a clear governance plan in place is crucial for effective Azure subscription owner management. According to Azure's best practices, a single owner should be designated to manage the subscription, ensuring accountability and clear decision-making.

Azure's subscription owner role has a unique set of permissions that allow for granular control over resource creation and deletion. This includes the ability to create and manage service principals, which are used to authenticate and authorize access to Azure resources.

With multiple owners, decision-making can become complicated, and accountability can be lost. In Azure, it's recommended to limit the number of owners to a minimum, ensuring that only necessary personnel have access to sensitive information.

To set up an Azure subscription owner, you'll need to authenticate to Azure with your EA account owner credentials. These credentials must be hosted in the tenant's AAD instance, not a Microsoft account or guest account from another AAD tenant.

To determine if you're a billing administrator, visit the Cost Management + Billing page in Azure portal, then select Billing scopes from the table. This will show all subscriptions where you're a billing administrator.

To assign a subscription administrator, an existing billing administrator assigns the Owner role to the user at the subscription scope. This gives the user full access to all resources in the subscription.

Here are the key roles and responsibilities:

If you're not sure who the account billing administrator is for a subscription, you can check the Subscriptions page in Azure portal and look under Settings. Select Properties, and the account billing administrator of the subscription is displayed in the Account Admin box.

To find the owner of a subscription, navigate to the Access control (IAM) tab within the Azure Subscription and check the role assignments. You can also visit the Subscriptions page, select the subscription, and look under Settings. Select Properties, and the account administrator of the subscription is shown in the Account Admin box.

As an Azure subscription owner, you have the flexibility to manage multiple subscriptions under one Azure AD tenant. An Azure tenant can have multiple subscriptions, and each subscription can use the same Azure AD.

To make the most of this model, it's essential to understand the pros and cons. One of the key advantages of having multiple subscriptions is that it allows for easy billing and access control. Multiple subscriptions enable a company to view billing for each subscription separately and limit who can access the Microsoft Azure services associated with that subscription.

Here are some key benefits of the multiple subscription model:

To manage your multiple subscriptions effectively, it's crucial to have a clear understanding of your organization's needs and goals. By doing so, you can create a subscription structure that aligns with your business requirements.

To manage access to your Azure subscription, you need to understand Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). RBAC allows you to control who has access to what resources within your subscription.

To implement RBAC, you'll need to connect your corporate identity store, such as Active Directory, to Azure Active Directory using the AD connect tool. This is a crucial step in managing access to your subscription.

You can control the admin/co-admin of a subscription using a managed identity. Instead of assigning admin/co-admin rights to a new subscription owner, use RBAC roles to provide owner rights to a group or individual.

Here's a step-by-step guide to implementing RBAC:

For example, if you need to grant a user access to manage a specific resource group, assign them the Owner role at the subscription scope. This will give them full access to all resources in the subscription, including the right to delegate access to others.

To assign a user as an administrator, you'll need to assign the Owner role to them at the subscription scope. This can be done using the Azure portal.

To authenticate with the EA Portal, you should use Azure AD account credentials for your Microsoft Tenant. This allows you to view the Account page as illustrated earlier.

You'll need to confirm that this authentication works as expected before proceeding. Once you've done that, you'll repeat the authentication using either the Azure Powershell Module or the Azure CLI, with specific commands presented in the guide.

To add the service principal to your enrollment account, you'll use a command that allocates the Owner role to the EA Account Id, which you discovered earlier. This command will be used with our chosen Service Principal.

Delegating EA Privileges is a crucial step in the process. You can delegate the Account Owner role to a chosen Service Principal.

To start, you'll need to identify the EA Account Id, which you can discover through the enrollment process. This ID will be used to allocate the Owner role to your chosen Service Principal.

The command to allocate the Owner role is straightforward: it will add the service principal to your enrollment account. This is done using a specific command that allocates the Owner role to the EA Account Id.

Delegating EA Account Owner Privileges is a key part of the process, and it's essential to get it right. You'll need to delegate the Account Owner role to the chosen Service Principal, which will give them the necessary permissions.

To access the EA Department, you'll need to use your Azure AD account credentials for your Microsoft Tenant. This will allow you to authenticate with the EA Portal and view the Account page.

The EA Department Account Owner can authenticate with the EA Portal using their Azure AD account credentials. You should be able to confirm this works as expected.

Once you've confirmed the authentication, you'll need to repeat the process using either the Azure Powershell Module or the Azure CLI. The guide will present the commands used in either scenario, so be sure to follow along carefully.

To authenticate with the EA Portal using the Azure Powershell Module or the Azure CLI, you'll need to use specific commands. These commands will vary depending on whether you're using the Powershell Module or the CLI.