As you pursue your AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator exam, one critical concept you’ll need to understand is resource tagging, a crucial mechanism for managing and organizing your Azure resources efficiently. With tags, you can categorize your resources based on different parameters according to your administrative, operational, and business requirements. We will discuss how you can apply, manage and utilize tags in Microsoft Azure throughout this article.
What Are Azure Tags?
Tags are user-defined labels or metadata that you can assign to your Azure resources. Each tag consists of a name (or key) and a value pair, enabling you to categorize resources based on project, owner, environment, or any other discrete characteristic.
Benefits of Using Azure Resource Tags
There are several advantages of implementing Azure resource tags:
- Organization: tags help you manage and categorize your resources with ease.
- Cost Tracking: Apply tags to track costs in your organization by different resources or departments.
- Automation: Tags can be used to automate and streamline operational tasks, such as start and stop schedules for virtual machines.
How to Implement Azure Resource Tags
1. Apply Tags to Resources
You may assign up to 50 tag name/value pairs to each resource or resource group. This is how you assign a tag to a resource group in the Azure portal:
- Go to the resource group for which you want to define a tag.
- Click on ‘Tags’ from the left-hand menu.
- Input your desired tag name and value. For example, you might input Project as a tag name and Project X as its value.
- Click ‘Save’.
2. Manage Tags Across Resources
You can manage your resource tags using the Azure Policy service, using built-in policies to enforce your company’s naming convention and limit the values to be used for specific tag names. For example, you could enforce that all resources should have a tag “Environment” with allowed values of “Test”, “Dev”, or “Prod”.
To enact this:
- Go to Azure Policy service from the Azure portal.
- Click on ‘Definitions’ from the left-hand menu.
- On the definition page, type ‘tag’ in the filter box.
- Click on the policy ‘Require a tag on resources’.
- Click on ‘Assign’ to enforce the rule.
3. Utilizing Existing Tags
You can easily filter resources based on tags in the Azure portal. The steps are:
- Open the resource that you want to filter.
- Go to “All Resources” from the left-hand menu.
- Click on ‘Add filter’.
- Select the tag name you want to filter by from the dropdown.
Conclusion
By using Microsoft Azure resource tags, you can improve the management, organization, and clarity of costs of your Azure resources, making it easy to keep track of different resources, resource groups, and even subscriptions. This efficiency will not only keep your Azure environment cleaner but will also positively impact your operational budget. Understanding and applying tags is an important skill for the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator exam and for your foray into Azure administration.
Practice Test
True or False: Microsoft Azure does not allow tagging resources.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Azure allows you to apply tags to resources for logical organization.
Which of the following is NOT a benefit of applying tags to Azure resources?
- a) Enhanced security
- b) Easier management of resources
- c) Detailed billing reports
- d) Increased storage capacity
Answer: d) Increased storage capacity
Explanation: Tags do not directly influence the storage capacity of Azure resources. They mainly assist in management, organization, securing and costing of resources.
True or False: You can apply tags to resources when they are being creating.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Azure provides the capability to apply tags during the creation of the resource.
True or False: A tag in Azure can have more than one value.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: A tag in Azure is a name-value pair. One tag corresponds to only one value.
What is the maximum number of tags that you can apply to each Azure resource?
- a) 10
- b) 15
- c) 50
- d) 100
Answer: d) 100
Explanation: Each resource or resource group in Azure can have a maximum of 50 tag name/value pairs.
Azure policies can ensure that ________
- a) Only named users can apply or modify tags
- b) All tags are removed from resources
- c) Some tags are applied automatically
- d) All of the above
Answer: d) All of the above
Explanation: Azure policies provide these capabilities to help ensure tag governance across resources.
True or False: Tags can be used to group resources from different resource groups.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Tags can indeed be used to organize resources across different resource groups and even across subscriptions.
Which of the following actions can be performed in the Azure Policy service? (Choose two)
- a) Create and assign policies that enforce different rules and effects over your resources.
- b) Apply tags to resources.
- c) Transfer files between different resources.
Answer: a) Create and assign policies that enforce different rules and effects over your resources, b) Apply tags to resources
Explanation: Azure Policy service is used to create, assign and manage policies. It is also used to apply tags in order to organize resources and enforce accountability.
What PowerShell command is used to create a new tag?
- a) New-AzTag
- b) Add-AzTag
- c) Set-AzTag
- d) Create-AzTag
Answer: c) Set-AzTag
Explanation: The Set-AzTag cmdlet is used to create new tags.
True or False: A Resource can be deleted by deleting its tags.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Deleting tags only removes the tags, not the resources themselves.
Does Microsoft charge anything for using tags?
- Yes
- No
Answer: No
Explanation: Tagging Azure resources is a free service provided to help manage and organize resources, and doesn’t incur any extra costs.
A resource in Microsoft Azure can have a maximum of how many tags?
- a) 10
- b) 15
- c) 25
- d) 50
Answer: d) 50
Explanation: A resource in Microsoft Azure can have a maximum of 50 tags.
True or False: Tags can be used to filter the view of your resources in the Azure portal.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Tags can indeed be used to filter views and make it easier to manage resources in the Azure portal.
Can tags be applied to resource groups in Azure?
- Yes
- No
Answer: Yes
Explanation: In Azure, tags can be applied to resource groups and individual resources.
True or False: Tags in Azure are case-sensitive.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Tags in Azure are case-sensitive, which means “Tag1” and “tag1” would be considered as different tags.
Interview Questions
What are tags in Microsoft Azure used for?
Tags in Azure are name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources and view consolidated billing by applying the same tag to multiple resources and resource groups.
Can tags be applied to every type of Azure resource?
Not all resources or resource types support tags. It depends on the specific Azure service and type of resource.
How many tags can be applied to each Azure resource?
Each Azure resource or resource group can have a maximum of 50 tags.
How are tags typically formatted in Azure?
Tags are typically formatted as name/value pairs, for example, Environment/Production.
What is the function of Azure Policy in tag management?
Azure Policy can help enforce your organization’s tagging strategies by applying rules and effects for tag compliance. Policies can be applied that enforce required tags and control tagging actions.
Can you delete a tag in Azure?
Yes, you can delete a tag. However, deleting a tag removes it from both the subscription and all resources associated with the subscription.
Can resource tags be used to filter views within Azure Cost Management?
Yes, resource tags can be used to filter views within Azure Cost Management to help you to analyze costs for a group of resources within a certain tag.
What is the PowerShell Cmdlet to create or modify a tag value?
The cmdlet is “New-AzTag”.
Can you analyse the usage of tags using Azure Resource Graph?
Yes, Azure Resource Graph can be used to examine the usage of tags across your resources in Azure.
What is Azure Tag Policy?
Azure Tag Policy is a governance feature that enables enforcing of specific taxonomy and helps to ensure correct tagging practices within the organization.
How can you ensure that every resource in your Azure subscription has a specific tag?
This can be achieved by creating an Azure Policy that audits or denies the creation of resources without the specific tag.
How do tags affect the cost associated with Azure resources?
Tags do not affect the cost of Azure resources. They are used primarily for organizational purposes and for cost tracking.
Can I move tags along with the resources during the Azure resource move process?
Yes, when you move a resource within Azure, all its associated tags are also moved with the resource.
How do I view all the tags applied within my Azure subscription?
You can view tags by navigating to the ‘Tags’ service in the Azure portal, where you can get an overview of all the tags applied within your Azure subscription.
What is the Azure CLI command to add a tag to an existing resource?
The Azure CLI command is az resource tag –tags <tags>.
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