Tutorial / Cram Notes
AWS Organizations is a service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. It facilitates scalable management for multiple AWS accounts, allowing you to set up and govern a wide-ranging multi-account environment.
Key Features
- Centralized Billing: Consolidate billing across all accounts and take advantage of aggregated volume discounts.
- Hierarchical Grouping: Organize your AWS accounts into a hierarchy of Organizational Units (OUs) for easier management.
- Service Control Policies (SCPs): Apply policies to OUs or individual accounts to ensure compliance with company-wide rules.
- Tagging: Use tags for cost allocation reports and tracking resources across accounts.
- Account Automation: Automatically create new accounts with account factory standards or via API integrations.
Use Case Example
An enterprise could set up an organization with multiple OUs, such as ‘Development’, ‘Staging’, and ‘Production’. Each OU can house multiple accounts with service control policies to ensure that only certain services are used in ‘Development’, strict compliance rules are adhered to in ‘Production’, and so on. By using AWS Organizations, the enterprise can manage these accounts and their associated resources and policies more efficiently.
AWS Control Tower
AWS Control Tower is a service that automates the setup of a baseline environment, also known as a landing zone, for an AWS multi-account architecture. It offers a straightforward way to set up new accounts and provides ongoing governance.
Key Features
- Landing Zone: Automatically set up and configure a multi-account environment with best-practice blueprints.
- Account Factory: Template for provisioning new accounts with predefined configurations.
- Guardrails: Implement preventive and detective guardrails to ensure compliance with policies.
- Dashboard: Centralized dashboard providing visibility into the compliance status of accounts.
Use Case Example
Consider a business that’s expanding its cloud presence and needs to quickly set up multiple new accounts adhering to the best practices for security and compliance. AWS Control Tower can be used to create a landing zone, which establishes the initial account structure, identity management, logging, and monitoring across all accounts, following the best practices.
AWS Organizations vs. AWS Control Tower
AWS Organizations | AWS Control Tower | |
---|---|---|
Primary Function | Account management and policy governance | Automated multi-account setup and governance |
Setup | Manually create and manage accounts and OUs | Landing zone setup is automated |
Policies | Service control policies (SCPs) | Preventive and detective guardrails |
Account Provisioning | Account creation requires manual setup or automation via scripts | Account Factory enables standardized account provisioning |
Centralized Management | Billing and policy management via master account | Governance dashboard for overview and compliance checks |
Best Practices | Provides flexibility in management strategies | Offers a guided experience for best practice setup |
While AWS Organizations is essential for controlling and managing multiple AWS accounts, AWS Control Tower is designed to simplify the process of setting up and maintaining these accounts with a framework of best practices in mind. Together, these tools provide the ability to efficiently manage growth, security, and compliance in AWS cloud environments.
In summary, in the context of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) exam, you should be able to recommend when to use AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower based on an organization’s requirements for scale, centralized policy management, and governance. You should be aware of how they can be complementary or how Control Tower can enforce consistent configurations and best practices within an organization created by AWS Organizations.
Practice Test with Explanation
(True/False) AWS Organizations allows you to centrally manage multiple AWS accounts within a single organization.
- Answer: True
Explanation: AWS Organizations enables account management at scale by allowing customers to create groups of AWS accounts and manage policies across those accounts.
(Single Select) Which AWS service primarily provides a way to set up and govern a secure and compliant multi-account AWS environment?
- a) AWS Config
- b) AWS Security Hub
- c) AWS Control Tower
- d) AWS Trusted Advisor
Answer: c) AWS Control Tower
Explanation: AWS Control Tower is designed to set up and govern a secure, compliant, multi-account environment.
(Single Select) When using AWS Organizations, what feature enables you to apply Service Control Policies (SCPs) to multiple AWS accounts?
- a) Organizational Units (OUs)
- b) Consolidated Billing
- c) IAM Roles
- d) Account Groups
Answer: a) Organizational Units (OUs)
Explanation: Organizational Units within AWS Organizations allow you to group accounts and apply SCPs to those groups for centralized management.
(True/False) AWS Control Tower and AWS Organizations are two entirely separate services with no integration points.
- Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Control Tower leverages AWS Organizations to create a multi-account environment and uses Service Control Policies for governance.
(Multiple Select) Which of the following features are provided by AWS Control Tower? (Select two)
- a) Landing Zone automation
- b) Identity federation setup
- c) Infrastructure provisioning
- d) Centralized logging with Amazon CloudWatch
Answer: a) Landing Zone automation, d) Centralized logging with Amazon CloudWatch
Explanation: AWS Control Tower automates the setup of a landing zone and facilitates centralized logging among other governance functionalities.
(True/False) AWS Organizations supports consolidated billing which enables the aggregation of costs across multiple AWS accounts.
- Answer: True
Explanation: AWS Organizations provides the capability to consolidate billing and payment for multiple AWS accounts.
(Single Select) Which of the following is the main benefit of implementing AWS Control Tower?
- a) Decreases deployment time of AWS resources
- b) Allows individual account-level autonomy
- c) Provides a mechanism for detailed access control
- d) Simplifies the setup and governance of a secure and compliant multi-account environment
Answer: d) Simplifies the setup and governance of a secure and compliant multi-account environment
Explanation: AWS Control Tower simplifies the creation of a well-architected multi-account AWS environment that is secure and compliant.
(Single Select) Can existing AWS accounts be added to an organization created with AWS Organizations?
- a) Yes, without any restrictions
- b) Yes, but with some limitations
- c) No, only new accounts can be added
- d) No, accounts have to remain standalone
Answer: b) Yes, but with some limitations
Explanation: Existing accounts can be invited to join an organization, but there are certain limitations, such as the requirement for the accounts to be email-verified and not part of another organization.
(True/False) Service Control Policies (SCPs) applied at the root level in AWS Organizations affect all AWS accounts within the organization.
- Answer: True
Explanation: SCPs applied at the root level of an organization apply to all member accounts, unless overridden by more specific policies at the Organizational Unit or account level.
(True/False) AWS Control Tower offers a dashboard to view the compliance status of your organizational units and accounts.
- Answer: True
Explanation: The AWS Control Tower dashboard provides a centralized view of the compliance status of resources across your organization.
(Multiple Select) What are the two default organizational units (OUs) created when you set up a new environment in AWS Control Tower?
- a) Security OU
- b) Core OU
- c) Log archive OU
- d) Sandbox OU
Answer: b) Core OU, c) Log archive OU
Explanation: AWS Control Tower automatically creates a Core OU for essential shared services and a Log archive OU for centralized logging.
(True/False) The master account in AWS Organizations has unrestricted access to manage every member account within the organization.
- Answer: True
Explanation: The master account in AWS Organizations has the ability to fully manage all aspects of every member account within the organization, including SCPs and invitations to join the organization.
Interview Questions
What is the purpose of AWS Organizations in managing multiple AWS accounts?
AWS Organizations helps you centrally manage and govern your environment as you grow and scale your AWS resources across multiple accounts. By using this service, you can create groups of AWS accounts, automate new account creation, apply policies for these accounts to standardize resources and control access, and simplify billing by setting up a single payment method for all accounts. This enhances security, compliance, and governance at scale.
How does AWS Control Tower simplify the setup and management of a multi-account AWS environment?
AWS Control Tower abstracts the complexity of setting and managing a multi-account environment by providing a graphical user interface to set up your environment according to best practices. It provides a central dashboard to automates the setup of a baseline environment, or landing zone, enables governance with guardrails, and carries out ongoing policy management. This enhances security and compliance for the accounts in the organization.
Can you describe what SCPs (Service Control Policies) are and how they are used in AWS Organizations?
SCPs, or Service Control Policies, are a type of policy that you can use in AWS Organizations to manage permissions in your organization. SCPs allow you to define the maximum available permissions for member accounts of an organization. When an SCP is applied to an account or an OU (Organizational Unit), it limits the services and actions that users and roles in affected accounts can perform, regardless of their individual IAM policies.
What are the benefits of setting up a multi-account strategy with AWS Organizations?
A multi-account strategy using AWS Organizations provides several benefits including improved security and isolation, easier operational management, tailored environments for the lifecycle (dev/test/prod), simplified compliance needs, resource grouping for clear billing, and the ability to apply service control policies at scale. This separation of concerns and centralized management can lead to a more secure and efficiently managed cloud environment.
In the context of AWS Control Tower, what are Guardrails and how do they function?
Guardrails in AWS Control Tower are high-level rules that provide governance for your AWS environments. They come in two types: preventive and detective. Preventive guardrails are implemented using AWS service control policies (SCPs) that prevent resources from being deployed that do not conform to your company’s policies. Detective guardrails are rules that detect if your resources are not in compliance with your policies and provide alerts through AWS Config. They ensure ongoing compliance and security.
How does AWS Control Tower ensure that new accounts adhere to company-wide policies without manual intervention?
AWS Control Tower ensures adherence to company-wide policies through blueprints that define a set of guardrails, which are automatically applied when new accounts are created within the landing zone. These guardrails enforce compliance and security best practices. Furthermore, AWS Control Tower automates the setup of a landing zone that includes a pre-configured set of environments based on AWS best practices, helping to eliminate manual setup errors and reduce the time needed to onboard new accounts.
How does AWS Organizations integrate with other AWS services to improve the security of your environment?
AWS Organizations integrates with other AWS services such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config, and AWS Service Catalog, thereby enhancing security. It allows you to control user access across all accounts, enable centralized logging and monitoring of account activity, automate compliance checks, and manage the deployment of standardized resources. These integrations streamline security and compliance efforts across the entire organization.
What role does the AWS Management Account play in an AWS Organizations setup?
The AWS Management Account is the primary account that you use to create and manage your organization. It has permission to perform tasks in AWS Organizations, such as inviting other accounts to join the organization, removing accounts, creating and managing Organizational Units (OUs), and creating and applying Service Control Policies (SCPs). It acts as the central account with the ultimate control over all member accounts.
Explain what a Landing Zone is in AWS Control Tower and its core components.
A Landing Zone in AWS Control Tower refers to a well-architected, multi-account baseline that provides a secure and scalable starting point for your AWS environment. It includes predefined security and compliance controls, such as Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles, AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) integration, account structure (organizational units and accounts), networking (VPCs), logging (S3 buckets for logs), and monitoring (AWS Security Hub, AWS Config) set up based on AWS best practices.
What are the primary differences between AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower?
AWS Organizations is focused on account management at scale, providing services to manage policies, create automated account configurations, and simplify billing across multiple AWS accounts. On the other hand, AWS Control Tower is a service that builds on the capabilities of AWS Organizations and provides a user interface and a set of constructs (e.g., landing zones, guardrails) to set up and manage a multi-account AWS environment with governance and best practice blueprints. Control Tower is designed to automate the set-up of a baseline multi-account environment, while AWS Organizations offers the granularity to manage detailed permissions and policies across those accounts.
How does AWS Organizations help in cost management across multiple accounts?
AWS Organizations facilitates cost management by providing consolidated billing. This allows you to get a combined view of AWS costs incurred by all accounts in the organization, enabling you to track the overall spending and usage patterns easily. Cost allocation tags can also be used across accounts to categorize and track your AWS costs. Additionally, with centralized control, you can enforce budgetary constraints using SCPs to ensure that spending stays within organizational limits.
This blog post on AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower is really informative and helpful for the SAP-C02 exam preparation. Thanks!
Could someone explain how Service Control Policies (SCPs) integrate with AWS Organizations for governance?
Good breakdown of AWS Control Tower’s guardrails feature. Helped me understand the governance aspects better.
Can AWS Control Tower’s guardrails be customized or is it only predefined by AWS?
Appreciate the detailed explanation on SCPs. Cleared up a lot of confusion for me!
How does AWS Control Tower simplify the account creation process?
Thanks for the great post. It’s precisely what I needed while preparing for the SAP-C02 exam.
Great insights on the cross-account access controls within AWS Organizations. Much appreciated!