Announcing New Cloud Governance Guidance in the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) for Azure

We are thrilled to announce the latest enhancement to Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. We comprehensively updated our cloud governance guidance in the Govern section of the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). The updated governance guidance represents Microsoft's commitment to supporting your organization's cloud journey, offering a clearer, more accessible, and comprehensive path to effective cloud governance. It encompasses identity, cost, resource, data, and AI governance among other areas of governance categories.

Whether you're a startup looking to scale efficiently or a large enterprise aiming to refine your governance practices, we designed this governance guidance to meet your needs and guide you to where you need to be.

What is cloud governance?

Cloud governance is how you control allowed and disallowed cloud usage. To control the cloud, you set up guardrails to mitigate risks and enable productivity. These guardrails consist of policies, procedures, and tools. You create cloud governance policies that define acceptable and unacceptable cloud use. Then, you use procedures and tools to align cloud use to those policies.

Effective cloud governance applies to all cloud use, so there are no instances of unauthorized or unmanaged cloud activity (shadow IT). Cloud security and cloud operations focus on cloud use within these guardrails, but they also help support and refine cloud governance over time.

Why Use Govern in the Cloud Adoption Framework?

The new CAF Govern guidance draws on customer experience and the recent advances in technologies to outline a streamlined and tested approach to cloud governance. The updates provide seven distinct benefits:

1. Simple, proven process. A global team of governance experts drew on their customer experiences to create a single, five-step process to establish and maintain cloud governance over time. There’s a convenient checklist in the guidance that outlines every task in each of the five steps with convenient links to the relevant guidance.

2. Applicable to all customers. The new guidance is highly relevant and applicable to organizations of all types and sizes. Large enterprises can find detailed insights and enable their organization to refine and strengthen its cloud governance framework. Startups benefit from succinct overviews, practical examples, and sections on using Azure to implement governance efficiently to remain agile while ensuring governance.

3. Azure governance tools indicated. Throughout the guidance, we incorporated references and links to Azure tools and services that facilitate cloud governance. The guidance helps you find and configure the right Azure tools. The guidance includes Azure facilitation sections on how to:

• Identify cloud risks
• Enforce cloud governance policies
• Configure cloud governance monitoring
• Configure cloud governance alerts

4. Example governance artifacts. The guidance provides examples of cloud governance documentation and recommendations for gathering the right governance data. The examples throughout the guidance build on each other to demonstrate to provide cohesive, actionable guidance. The guidance includes the following examples:

• Cloud governance RACI matrix
• Cloud risk list (risk register)
• Cloud governance policies
• Cloud compliance checklists

5. Expanded governance categories. The updated guidance touches on common categories of cloud governance. It includes vital new categories such as AI governance, data governance, regulatory compliance, and operations management. These new categories exist alongside foundational areas like cost, security, and resource management. We crafted the guidance to be flexible enough address any cloud governance concerns that are unique to your organization and business.

6. New cloud governance assessment. To further support your governance journey, we've introduced an updated Cloud Governance assessment. This tool helps you identify and address gaps in your cloud governance strategy and directs you to the relevant guidance in the new guidance to fix those gaps.

Next step

Dive into the new Cloud Governance Guidance in the Cloud Adoption Framework today and take the next step in controlling and streamlining your business with Azure.