Define your naming convention

An effective naming convention consists of resource names from important information about each resource. A good name helps you quickly identify the resource's type, associated workload, environment, and the Azure region hosting it. For example, a public IP resource for a production SharePoint workload in the West US region might be pip-sharepoint-prod-westus-001.

Diagram that shows the components of an Azure resource name.

Diagram 1: Components of an Azure resource name.

When you construct your naming convention, identify the key pieces of information you want to reflect in a resource name. Different information is relevant for different resource types, and not all established naming components can be used for each resource type. The intention is to have a standard naming convention for your environment that is easy to follow, concise, and useful for recognizing information that's relevant to the deployed resource.

The following list provides examples of naming components that are useful when you construct resource names:

Naming component Description
Organization Top-level name of organization, normally utilized as top management group or, in smaller organizations, part of the naming convention. Example: contoso
Business unit or department Top-level division of your company that owns the subscription or workload the resource belongs to. In smaller organizations, this component might represent a single corporate top-level organizational element. Examples: fin, mktg, product, it, corp
Resource type An abbreviation that represents the type of Azure resource or asset. This component often is used as a prefix or suffix in the name. For more information, see Recommended abbreviations for Azure resource types. Examples: rg, vm
Project, application, or service name Name of a project, application, or service that the resource is a part of. Examples: navigator, emissions, sharepoint, hadoop
Environment The stage of the development lifecycle for the workload that the resource supports. Examples: prod, dev, qa, stage, test
Location The region or cloud provider where the resource is deployed. Examples: westus, eastus2, westeu, usva, ustx
VM role Identifier for the purpose of the VM. Examples: db (database), ws (web server), ps (print server)
Instance The instance count for a specific resource to identify more than one resource that has the same naming convention. Examples, 01, 001

Note

Although virtual machine (VM) names in Azure can be longer than the allowed NetBIOS name of the VM, we recommend that you keep them consistent. For more information and for other restrictions, see Computer names.

Naming considerations

In addition to defining the naming components, you must also consider the order in which the naming components should be listed, if and what type of delimiters you should use between components, and take into account the different naming rules associated with resources types.

Scope

All Azure resource types have a scope that defines the level of that resource and that the resource names must be unique. A resource must have a unique name within its scope.

For example, a virtual network has a resource group scope, which means that there can be only one network named vnet-prod-westus-001 in a given resource group. Other resource groups could have their own virtual network named vnet-prod-westus-001. Subnets are scoped to virtual networks, so each subnet within a virtual network must have a distinct name.

Some resource names, such as PaaS services with public endpoints or virtual machine DNS labels, have global scopes, so they must be unique across the entire Azure platform.

Diagram that shows the scope levels for Azure resource names.

Diagram 2: Scope levels for Azure resource names.

Azure naming rules

Azure naming rules vary depending on the resource type. When you define a naming convention, it's important to understand Azure naming rules for the resource type to avoid confusion and delay deployments.

For example, resource names have length limits. We recommend that you keep the length of naming components short to prevent exceeding resource name length limits.

Note

Balancing the context of a name with its scope and name length limit is important when you develop your naming conventions. For more information, see Naming rules and restrictions for Azure resources.

When you construct your naming convention, identify the key pieces of information that you want to reflect in a resource name. Different information is relevant for different resource types. The following list provides examples of information that's useful when you construct resource names.

You can abbreviate resource names and naming components as a strategy to reduce the length and complexity of resource names. Shortening names can be useful for any of the naming components, but it's especially important to help you keep resource names within name length limits. For example, a VM name in Azure can be longer than the OS naming restrictions. Keeping Azure VM names shorter than the naming restrictions of the OS helps create consistency, improve communication when discussing resources, and reduce confusion when you are working in the Azure portal while being signed in to the VM itself.

Naming component Description
Resource type An abbreviation that represents the type of Azure resource or asset. This component is often used as a prefix or suffix in the name. For more information, see Recommended abbreviations for Azure resource types.
Examples: rg, vm
Business unit Top-level division of your company that owns the subscription or workload the resource belongs to. In smaller organizations, this component might represent a single corporate top-level organizational element.
Examples: fin, mktg, product, it, corp
Application or service name Name of the application, workload, or service that the resource is a part of.
Examples: navigator, emissions, sharepoint, hadoop
Subscription purpose Summary description of the purpose of the subscription that contains the resource. Often broken down by environment or specific workloads.
Examples: prod, shared, client
Environment The stage of the development lifecycle for the workload that the resource supports.
Examples: prod, dev, qa, stage, test
Region The Azure region where the resource is deployed.
Examples: westus, eastus2, westeu, usva, ustx

Note

When you're ready to name your resources and assets, review Recommended abbreviations for Azure resource types.

The following section provides example names for common Azure resource types in an enterprise cloud deployment.

Note

Some of these example names use a three-digit padding scheme (###), such as mktg-prod-001.

Padding improves readability and sorting of assets when those assets are managed in a configuration management database (CMDB), IT Asset Management tool, or traditional accounting tools. When the deployed asset is managed centrally as part of a larger inventory or portfolio of IT assets, the padding approach aligns with interfaces those systems use to manage inventory naming.

Unfortunately, the traditional asset padding approach can prove problematic in infrastructure-as-code approaches that might iterate through assets based on a non-padded number. This approach is common during deployment or automated configuration management tasks. Those scripts would have to routinely strip the padding and convert the padded number to a real number, which slows script development and run time.

Choose an approach that's suitable for your organization. The padding shown here illustrates the importance of using a consistent approach to inventory numbering, rather than showing which approach is superior. Before choosing a numbering scheme, with or without padding, evaluate what will affect long-term operations more, CMDB and asset management solutions or code-based inventory management. Then, consistently follow the padding option that best fits your operational needs.

The following section provides some example names for common Azure resource types in an enterprise cloud deployment. For additional examples, see the Azure Naming Tool and the Naming and tagging tracking template.

Note

The following examples are intended to provide visualization of a naming convention, but actual conventions will vary by organization.

Example names: General

Asset type Scope Format and examples
Management group Business unit and/or
environment
mg-<business unit>[-<environment>]

  • mg-mktg
  • mg-hr
  • mg-corp-prod
  • mg-fin-client
  • Subscription Account / enterprise agreement <business unit>-<subscription purpose>-<###>

  • mktg-prod-001
  • corp-shared-001
  • fin-client-001
  • Resource group Subscription rg-<app or service name>-<subscription purpose>-<###>

  • rg-mktgsharepoint-prod-001
  • rg-acctlookupsvc-shared-001
  • rg-ad-dir-services-shared-001
  • API management service instance Global apim-<app or service name>

    apim-navigator-prod
    Managed identity Resource group id-<app or service name>-<environment>-<region name>-<###>

  • id-appcn-keda-prod-eastus2-001
  • Example names: Networking

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Virtual network Resource group vnet-<subscription purpose>-<region>-<###>

  • vnet-shared-eastus2-001
  • vnet-prod-westus-001
  • vnet-client-eastus2-001
  • Subnet Virtual network snet-<subscription purpose>-<region>-<###>

  • snet-shared-eastus2-001
  • snet-prod-westus-001
  • snet-client-eastus2-001
  • Network interface (NIC) Resource group nic-<##>-<vm name>-<subscription purpose>-<###>

  • nic-01-dc1-shared-001
  • nic-02-vmhadoop1-prod-001
  • nic-02-vmtest1-client-001
  • Public IP address Resource group pip-<vm name or app name>-<environment>-<region>-<###>

  • pip-dc1-shared-eastus2-001
  • pip-hadoop-prod-westus-001
  • Load balancer Resource group lb-<app name or role>-<environment>-<###>

  • lb-navigator-prod-001
  • lb-sharepoint-dev-001
  • Network security group (NSG) Subnet or NIC nsg-<policy name or app name>-<###>

  • nsg-weballow-001
  • nsg-rdpallow-001
  • nsg-sqlallow-001
  • nsg-dnsblocked-001
  • Local network gateway Virtual gateway lgw-<subscription purpose>-<region>-<###>

  • lgw-shared-eastus2-001
  • lgw-prod-westus-001
  • lgw-client-eastus2-001
  • Virtual network gateway Virtual network vgw-<subscription purpose>-<region>-<###>

  • vgw-shared-eastus2-001
  • vgw-prod-westus-001
  • vgw-client-eastus2-001
  • Site-to-Site connection Resource group cn-<local gateway name>-to-<virtual gateway name>

  • cn-lgw-shared-eastus2-001-to-vgw-shared-eastus2-001
  • cn-lgw-shared-eastus2-001-to-vgw-shared-westus-001
  • VPN connection Resource group cn-<subscription1 purpose>>-<region1>-to-<subscription2 purpose>>-<region2>-

  • cn-shared-eastus2-to-shared-westus
  • cn-prod-eastus2-to-prod-westus
  • Route table Resource group route-<route table name>

  • route-navigator
  • route-sharepoint
  • DNS label Global <DNS A record for VM>.<region>.cloudapp.azure.com

  • dc1.westus.cloudapp.azure.com
  • web1.eastus2.cloudapp.azure.com
  • Example names: Compute and Web

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Virtual machine Resource group vm<vm role><environment><###>

  • vmsqltest001
  • vmhadoopprod001
  • Web app Global app-<project, app or service>-<environment>-<###>.azurewebsites.net

  • app-navigator-prod-001.azurewebsites.net
  • app-accountlookup-dev-001.azurewebsites.net
  • Function app Global func-<project, app or service>-<environment>-<###>.azurewebsites.net

  • func-navigator-prod-001.azurewebsites.net
  • func-accountlookup-dev-001.azurewebsites.net
  • Example names: Databases

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Azure SQL database Azure SQL Database sqldb-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • sqldb-users-prod
  • sqldb-users-dev
  • Azure Cosmos DB database Global cosmos-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • cosmos-navigator-prod
  • cosmos-emissions-dev
  • Azure Cache for Redis instance Global redis-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • redis-navigator-prod
  • redis-emissions-dev
  • Example names: Storage

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Storage account (general use) Global st<project, app or service><###>

  • stnavigatordata001
  • stemissionsoutput001
  • Azure StorSimple Global ssimp<project, app or service><environment>

  • ssimpnavigatorprod
  • ssimpemissionsdev
  • Azure Container Registry Global cr<project, app or service><environment><###>

  • crnavigatorprod001
  • Example names: AI and machine learning

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Azure Cognitive Search Global srch-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • srch-navigator-prod
  • srch-emissions-dev
  • Azure Cognitive Services Resource group cog-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • cog-navigator-prod
  • cog-emissions-dev
  • Azure Machine Learning workspace Resource group mlw-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • mlw-navigator-prod
  • mlw-emissions-dev
  • Example names: Analytics and IoT

    Asset type Scope Format and examples
    Azure Data Factory Global adf-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • adf-navigator-prod
  • adf-emissions-dev
  • Azure Stream Analytics Resource group asa-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • asa-navigator-prod
  • asa-emissions-dev
  • Data Lake Storage account Global dls<project, app or service><environment>

  • dlsnavigatorprod
  • dlsemissionsdev
  • IoT hub Global iot-<project, app or service>-<environment>

  • iot-navigator-prod
  • iot-emissions-dev
  • Example names: Integration

    Asset type Scope Format and Examples
    Service Bus Global sb-<project, app or service>-<environment>.servicebus.windows.net

  • sb-navigator-prod.servicebus.windows.net
  • sb-emissions-dev.servicebus.windows.net
  • Service Bus queue Service Bus sbq-<query descriptor>

  • sbq-messagequery
  • Service Bus topic Service Bus sbt-<query descriptor>

  • sbt-messagequery