Microsoft Build 2025 Reveals Advanced Azure Governance: Enhanced Service Groups, Policy Features, and Resource Graph Innovations

Discover the latest in Azure Governance unveiled at Microsoft Build 2025! From new Azure Service Groups enabling flexible cross-subscription management to enhanced Azure Policy features and powerful tools like Azure Resource Graph Copilot, these updates boost security, compliance, and developer agility across your cloud environment. Unique :

Everything New in Azure Governance @ Build 2025

Microsoft Build 2025 showcased exciting updates for Azure Governance. If you’re managing cloud environments, these new features will boost your agility and control. Azure Governance continues to evolve, offering tighter security and smarter management across your Azure resources.

What’s New: Introducing Azure Service Groups

One of the biggest announcements is the public preview of Azure Service Groups. This new grouping structure lets you organize resources across multiple subscriptions with ease. It supports flexible hierarchies and low-privilege management, meaning users can manage resources without excessive permissions.

Service Groups enable:

Cross-subscription grouping for unified management
Multiple nested hierarchies for complex setups
Aggregated data views for better insights

“Service Groups provide a unified view and management capabilities, enabling low privilege management and flexible cross-subscription grouping.”

Major Updates to Azure Policy and Machine Configuration

Azure Policy is getting smarter with new features currently in private preview. These include user-based exemptions, caller-type enforcement, and IP filtering. These enhancements will soon be publicly available, giving you more granular control over policy enforcement.

Additionally, Azure Machine Configuration now supports Linux SSH Posture Control, which is generally available. This lets you manage SSH settings at scale, reducing attack surfaces and ensuring compliance.

Windows Server 2025 Audit Policy is also generally available, delivering over 300 security settings to keep your environment secure. It supports both on-premises and Azure Arc-connected devices, streamlining security baseline deployment.

“SSH Posture Control provides detailed reasons describing compliance or non-compliance, helping you document and act confidently.”

Faster Queries with Azure Resource Graph and Smarter Insights

The Azure Resource Graph (ARG) GET/LIST API is now generally available. It offers a 10x higher read throttling quota, making resource queries faster and more reliable. This is a game-changer for large-scale cloud environments.

Moreover, the ARG Copilot skill is now integrated with Azure Portal and GitHub Copilot. It translates natural language questions into ARG queries, simplifying resource governance and operational investigations.

Data Sovereignty with Azure Resource Manager

Azure Resource Manager now supports the EU Data Boundary, ensuring that data stays within European countries. This is crucial for meeting regulatory and compliance requirements related to data locality and sovereignty.

Why It Matters

These updates empower cloud teams to balance agility with governance. Whether you’re a developer or an IT pro, Azure Governance’s new features help secure your environment without slowing innovation.

Don’t miss the Unlock developer agility with a well governed environment session at Build 2025 on May 22, 8:30 AM PDT to dive deeper.

Stay Connected

Keep up with Azure Governance news by following the Azure Governance Tech Community and joining feedback roundtables. Your input shapes the future of Azure governance.

Azure Service Groups offer low-privilege, multi-hierarchy resource grouping across subscriptions for streamlined management.

New Azure Policy enhancements include user-based exemptions and IP filtering, currently in private preview.

Linux SSH Posture Control and Windows Server 2025 Audit Policy are now generally available for improved security compliance.

Azure Resource Graph GET/LIST API delivers 10X higher read throttling for faster, scalable resource queries.

Azure Resource Manager now supports EU Data Boundary to ensure data residency and compliance within EU regions.

From the New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub