The Azure Compliance Trick You Ignore

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Hey there,

Kicking off a new Azure environment often feels reassuring. Resources are deployed, dashboards are mostly green, and everything appears to be in order.

Then compliance enters the conversation. Suddenly, you are asked whether your payment systems meet PCI DSS requirements or if your data handling aligns with GDPR.

You open the compliance dashboard and see a mix of passing and failing checks. The signal is there, but the meaning is not always clear. What actually needs fixing, and how do you resolve it without becoming a compliance specialist overnight?

In today’s issue, we explore:

• How Azure Policy tracks compliance automatically

• The difference between built-in policies and custom rules

• How to get started with your first custom policy

Let’s dive in.

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Compliance is more than a checklist

Azure supports a wide range of industry and regulatory standards. These include HIPAA for healthcare, PCI DSS for payment processing, ISO 27001 for information security, GDPR for EU data protection, and FedRAMP for U.S. government agencies.

Azure Policy continuously evaluates your resources against these standards. It shows which resources are compliant, which are not, and in many cases provides ways to remediate issues automatically. Policy definitions are written in JSON, and related policies can be grouped into initiatives, such as the PCI DSS v4 initiative.

Here are a few reasons Azure Policy works well for ongoing compliance:

• Continuous monitoring across all resources

• A centralized dashboard highlighting compliant and non-compliant items

• Bulk remediation for existing resources that fall out of compliance

• Automatic enforcement for new deployments

• JSON-based definitions that can be grouped into initiatives

Together, these capabilities turn Azure Policy into more than a static checklist. They give you a living view of your cloud posture and a practical way to maintain standards as your environment evolves.

Built-in policies for regulatory standards

Azure includes built-in policy initiatives for common standards like PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. These allow you to start enforcing compliance quickly, without writing custom rules.

Applying one of these initiatives is straightforward:

• Create a resource group to test or scope the policy

• Browse built-in initiatives from the Policy page and assign them to the appropriate scope

• Review the compliance dashboard to see which resources meet requirements and which need attention

• Optionally disable enforcement to review results without blocking changes

This approach helps you track compliance automatically, identify gaps early, and understand your overall posture at a glance. For a detailed walkthrough with screenshots, you can read the full blog post here.

Custom policies for organizational rules

While built-in policies cover most regulatory requirements, custom policies enable you to enforce rules tailored to your organization. For example, you might restrict resource creation to approved regions. Any attempt to deploy resources outside those regions is blocked with a clear error message.

A custom policy typically includes three components:

• Mode, which defines the resource types it applies to

• Policy rule, which contains the compliance logic

• Parameters, which allow configurable values such as allowed regions

Once enabled, the policy enforces your rules automatically. Resources created outside approved regions are denied immediately, providing a clear signal that the policy is working as intended.

From the Policy Definitions page, you can view built-in and custom rules side by side, filter by type, and manage your organization’s policies alongside Azure’s compliance standards with ease.

Learn more about Azure compliance

Explore these resources to deepen your understanding of Azure Policy and cloud compliance.

What is Azure Policy? - Get a clear overview of Azure Policy, its structure, and how it helps enforce compliance across your environment.

Azure Policy built-in initiative definitions -  Browse pre-made policy sets for security, governance, and regulatory compliance.

Azure Policy initiative definition structure – Learn how to group multiple policies into a single initiative to simplify assignments and compliance management.