Apply effective naming conventions in Azure using the Azure Naming Tool

Everyone who works in software development knows this: naming things is hard. And when you need to create a lot of resources in Azure, naming things there can even be harder. If you recognize this struggle, I have some good news for you. With the help of the Azure Naming Tool, applying a good and consistent naming strategy becomes a lot easier.

Why naming conventions matter

Consistency and Clarity: Consistent naming conventions provide clarity, making it easier for team members to understand the purpose and function of each resource. This reduces confusion and enhances productivity.
Simplified Management: A structured naming convention simplifies resource management by grouping related resources together and enabling straightforward identification. This is particularly useful in large-scale environments where numerous resources are deployed.
Enhanced Security and Compliance: Proper naming conventions can help ensure compliance with security policies and regulatory requirements. By incorporating specific identifiers, such as environment and region, you can better manage access controls and audit trails.
Improved Automation: Automation tools often rely on consistent naming conventions to perform tasks efficiently. With clear and predictable names, automation scripts can easily identify and manage resources, reducing the risk of errors.

Introducing the Azure Naming tool

There is a lot of documentation out there to help you with a good naming strategy for your Azure resources. But instead of reading through all this information, let’s use the Azure Naming tool instead.

The Azure Naming Tool was created to help administrators define and manage their naming conventions, while providing a simple interface for users to generate a compliant name. The tool was developed using a naming pattern based on Microsoft's best practices. Once an administrator has defined the organizational components, users can use the tool to generate a name for the desired Azure resource.

The easiest way to get the tool up and running is through docker:

Go to the latest release and download the AzureNamingTool.zip.
Extract the zip file and build the docker image locally:

docker build -t azurenamingtool .

Now you can run the image using the following command:

docker run -d -p 9000:80 --mount source=azurenamingtoolvol,target=/app/settings azurenamingtool:latest

Go to http://localhost:9000 to access the tool.

Remark: The first time you do this, you need create an admin account.

The first thing we need to do is set some basic configuration. Go to the Admin section and login with the chosen password:

Now we can go to the Configuration section and add a new organization:

Let’s also add a new application:

There is a lot more we can configure. Certainly check out the other sections. But we’ll move on to the Generate section to generate a name for a specific resource.

First we need to specify a Generation Mode. In this case we only want to generate a name for a single resource. So we can leave the Generate Single Resource Type Name selected.

Next step is to select the desired resource type; filter the categories first and then you can select the specific resource:

Now we need to select a few things:

An (optional) unit or department
A project
An environment
A location
An instance

If we now click on the Generate button at the bottom a name is generated taking into account the naming conventions for the specific resource and the configured information: