Azure Portal: Filtering Resource Group Noise

Overview

The HISD subscription contains many Azure-system-generated resource groups that clutter the portal view. These are created automatically by Azure services and are not eSHARS-owned infrastructure. This page documents how to identify them and configure filtered views.

Auto-Generated Resource Groups (Ignore These)

Pattern	Created by
AzureBackupRG_*	Azure Backup — one per region, auto-created when VMs are protected
DefaultResourceGroup-*	Azure services (VM agent extensions, Cloud Shell) — one per region
cloud-shell-storage-*	Azure Cloud Shell — created on first use per region
azureapp-auto-alerts-*	Azure Monitor — auto-created when alert rules are configured
*_managed	Azure App Service — auto-created for managed identity / VNet integration features
Built-In-Identity-RG	Azure AD / Managed Identity infrastructure
dashboards	Azure Portal dashboard storage
Fim-DataCollectionRules	Microsoft Defender for Cloud — File Integrity Monitoring

These groups contain only Azure-managed resources. Do not delete or modify them.

Option 1: Tag-Based Filtering (Recommended)

All eSHARS-owned resource groups are tagged with managed-by: eshars-ops via Terraform. Use this tag to filter the portal view.

1. Open Resource groups in the Azure Portal
2. Click Add filter
3. Select Tag → managed-by → eshars-ops

This shows only eSHARS-owned RGs. The filter persists for your browser session.

Terraform enforcement

The managed-by: eshars-ops tag is applied in locals.tf via the shared common_tags block. Any RG provisioned by Terraform automatically has it.

Option 2: Resource Graph Query (Dashboard Tile)

Create a custom dashboard tile that permanently excludes noise. Paste this query into Azure Resource Graph Explorer:

ResourceContainers
| where type == "microsoft.resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups"
| where name !startswith "DefaultResourceGroup"
| where name !startswith "AzureBackupRG"
| where name !startswith "cloud-shell-storage"
| where name !endswith "_managed"
| where name !startswith "azureapp-auto-alerts"
| where name !in ("Built-In-Identity-RG", "dashboards", "Fim-DataCollectionRules")
| project name, location, tags
| order by name asc

Click Pin to dashboard to save it as a permanent tile.

Option 3: Portal Name Filter (Quick, Not Persistent)

Use the search/filter bar at the top of the Resource Groups list and type a prefix that matches eSHARS RGs (e.g., rg-eshars). Resets on page refresh.

eSHARS-Owned Resource Groups

All eSHARS resource groups follow the documented naming convention rg-eshars-{environment}-{component}-{region} (for example, rg-eshars-nonprod-data-cus). See the naming convention reference for the full convention and approved patterns.

Related

• Infrastructure overview
• Azure naming convention