The Azure Cloud Governance Framework is a comprehensive guide developed by Microsoft to assist organizations in implementing effective governance in their Azure environments. While the exact date of introduction is not specified, it forms part of Microsoft's ongoing efforts to provide structured guidance for managing and securing cloud resources efficiently. This framework encompasses several key components, including Azure Policy, Azure Blueprints, and Azure Management Groups, which collectively help organizations enforce policies, manage compliance, and organize resources across their Azure subscriptions. The framework emphasizes the importance of governance disciplines such as cost management, security baseline, resource consistency, identity baseline, and deployment acceleration. By adopting the Azure Cloud Governance Framework, organizations can ensure that their cloud environments are well-managed, secure, and aligned with their operational, compliance, and business objectives, thereby enabling a more controlled and optimized use of Azure cloud services.