As you might have noticed; It is not possible to rename an Azure Data Factory. So what do I do if I want to give it a new name?

In this post, I will show you one way of doing this.

The basic steps will be:

1. Open your existing Data Factory
2. Export it as an ARM Template
3. Create an “empty” Data Factory with the new name
4. Change the name of the Data Factory in the parameter file in your ARM template
5. Deploy your ARM Template

First of all, you should open the Data Factory that you would like to rename. Then export this as an “ARM Template”

Unzip the files to a folder.

Change the name of the Data Factory in your parameter file (arm_template_parameters.json). In my case, I would like to call it MyFactoryName.

Then open PowerShell (it requires you to have Azure PowerShell installed)

Authenticate by writing this command:

Connect-AzAccount


Then create an empty Azure Data Factory by writing this command

New-AzDataFactoryV2 -ResourceGroupName MyResourceGroupName -Name MyFactoryName –Location "westeurope"

To deploy your existing ARM Template to Azure

New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -Name MyFactoryName -ResourceGroupName MyResourceGroupName -TemplateFile C:\Users\username\Downloads\arm_template\arm_template.json -TemplateParameterFile  C:\Users\username\Downloads\arm_template\arm_template_parameters.json -Verbose


I like adding the -Verbose flag to see all the details.

If everything works out your new “copy” will appear in the portal.