📝 Azure Subscription Resources Basic SKU is used for production workloads 🟢
- Contextual name: 📝 Resources Basic SKU is used for production workloads 🟢
- ID:
/ce/ca/azure/subscription/resources-basic-sku-misuse-for-production-workloads - Located in: 📁 Azure Subscription
Flags
Our Metadata
- Policy Type:
BEST_PRACTICE - Policy Category:
RELIABILITY
Description
Description
The use of Basic or Free SKUs in Azure whilst cost effective have significant limitations in terms of what can be monitored and what support can be realized from Microsoft. Typically, these SKU’s do not have a service SLA and Microsoft may refuse to provide support for them. Consequently Basic/Free SKUs should never be used for production workloads.
Rationale
Typically, production workloads need to be monitored and should have an SLA with Microsoft, using Basic SKUs for any deployed product will mean that that these capabilities do not exist.
The following resource types should use standard SKUs as a minimum.
- Public IP Addresses
- Network Load Balancers
- REDIS Cache
- SQL PaaS Databases
- VPN Gateways
Impact
The impact of enforcing Standard SKU's is twofold:
- There will be a cost increase
- The monitoring and service level agreements will be available and will support the production service.
All resources should be either tagged or in separate Management Groups/Subscriptions.
Audit
This needs to be audited by Azure Policy (one for each resource type) and denied for each artifact that is production.
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Remediation
Remediation
Each resource has its own process for upgrading from basic to standard SKUs that should be followed if required.
- Public IP Address: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/ip-services/public-ip-upgrade.
- Basic Load Balancer: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-basic-upgrade-guidance.
- Azure Cache for Redis: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-cache-for-redis/cache-how-to-scale.
- Azure SQL Database: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/scale-resources.
- VPN Gateway: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/gateway-sku-resize.