Is Your Azure Landing Zone Ready for AI Workloads?

With AI technology changing so fast, it's crucial to make sure your core Azure Landing Zone can handle new AI tasks or blend AI into what you're already doing. As businesses look to use AI for better decisions and smoother operations, a strong foundation is essential. Let's check out the critical capabilities you should ensure are available within your core Azure Landing Zone to get set up for deploying Azure AI services.

Network Architecture

• Ensure private networking and DNS integration of deployed AI workload services to ensure public network access is limited
• Establish hybrid connectivity if needed for use cases that require access to on-premises data sources or private connections to AI workloads
• Monitor and control network connectivity to AI workload services using Azure native or third-party firewall solutions.

Identity and Access Controls

• Plan for user authentication to new AI functionality
• Define and build roles for administrative access to AI workloads
• Define and build roles for user level access to AI workloads

 Monitoring

• Provide centralized logging configuration and connectivity to ensure AI workloads have necessary operational and security logging in place

 Security

• Processes to manage vulnerabilities for Azure resources (IaaS and PaaS), third party frameworks that are used as well as custom code that is written as part of these workloads
• Processes to manage security alerts generated based on user activity as they are using the AI services and other components of the workloads
• Security standards defined and audited for approved configurations to ensure standard configurations

While not required, it would be an important best practice to ensure that resources deployed are managed through deployments through automation and IaC. Using code to manage resource deployments will ensure consistency and repeatability as multiple environments might need to be built out and replicated.

Preparing your Azure Landing Zone for AI readiness involves a comprehensive approach that encompasses network architecture, identity and access management, formal platform monitoring and secure cloud workloads. By incorporating these capabilities, your organization can confidently deploy Azure AI services, build new AI workloads, or integrate AI into existing workflows, driving innovation and achieving business objectives.

Ensuring your infrastructure is equipped to harness the power of AI is a strategic investment. With the right foundation in place, the potential for transformative insights and operational excellence is boundless.

If you are looking for help with setting up this solid foundation, please let us know, and we can ensure you have a solid foundation that is setup to scale for these new workloads and AI use cases.