Governance tools (for example, AWS Control Tower, Organizations)

What is AWS Control Tower, and how does it help with governance in the cloud?

AWS Control Tower is a service that provides an easy way to set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment based on best practices. It automates the setup of a baseline environment with predefined security and compliance controls, including identity management, centralized logging, and monitoring, to help ensure that accounts within an organization are compliant with policies and standards.

Can you describe the key benefits of using AWS Organizations for governance?

AWS Organizations helps centrally manage and govern your environment as you grow and scale your AWS resources. Key benefits include:
– Consolidated billing to streamline setup and management of multiple AWS accounts.
– Hierarchical organization of accounts using Organizational Units (OUs) for easier management.
– Control over AWS services and actions across multiple AWS accounts through Service Control Policies (SCPs).
– Automation of AWS account creation and management processes.

How does AWS Control Tower simplify the management of multi-account AWS environments?

AWS Control Tower simplifies the management of multi-account AWS environments by providing a central dashboard from which you can automate the creation of new accounts, apply and enforce governance policies across your organization, and audit an environment against established best practices.

What are Guardrails in AWS Control Tower, and how are they applied?

Guardrails in AWS Control Tower are high-level policy definitions that provide governance rules for security, compliance, and operations. They come in two types: preventive and detective. Preventive guardrails preemptively prevent policy violations, whereas detective guardrails identify non-compliant resources and activities. These are applied through AWS Service Catalog products which are provisioned as part of the account setup process.

How do Service Control Policies (SCPs) work within AWS Organizations, and what is their purpose?

SCPs within AWS Organizations act as a guardrail to manage permissions in member accounts. They define the maximum permissions for account members of an OU, allowing or denying actions on the specified AWS services across accounts. The purpose of SCPs is to ensure that accounts within an organization comply with the overarching governance rules and constraints.

What is the difference between resource policies and SCPs in AWS?

Resource policies are specific to an individual service or resource, determining permissions directly on those resources (such as S3 bucket policies, IAM role trust policies). SCPs, on the other hand, apply to all IAM users and roles within member accounts of an AWS Organization, restricting permissions on a broader, account-wide scale regardless of the individual resource policies.

Is it possible to implement automated compliance checks for AWS resources, and if so, how?

Yes, it is possible to implement automated compliance checks for AWS resources using services such as AWS Config. AWS Config continuously monitors and records AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. With AWS Config rules, you can assess compliance against policies and best practices.

How can AWS Organizations help with cost optimization across multiple accounts?

AWS Organizations can help with cost optimization through consolidated billing, which combines the usage from all accounts to help you get volume-based discounts and simplify the payment process. Additionally, SCPs can restrict or promote the use of cost-effective resources and actions across accounts, and budgets can be set to monitor and control cost at the organization or account level.

Can you migrate existing AWS accounts into a new AWS Organization, and what steps are involved?

Yes, you can migrate existing AWS accounts into a new AWS Organization. The general steps involve:
– Inviting the existing account to join the organization from the master account.
– The administrator of the invited account must accept the invitation.
– Once accepted, you can move the account into the appropriate OU and apply the necessary SCPs and governance policies.

Describe how AWS Control Tower and AWS Organizations can work together to manage a multi-account architecture.

AWS Control Tower uses AWS Organizations to create and manage a multi-account architecture. Control Tower sets up a new organization or can build on top of an existing one, organizing accounts into OUs and applying guardrails (implemented as SCPs or detective guardrails) across the organization. It also uses other AWS services like AWS Config to enforce compliance and manage resources at scale.

How does AWS Control Tower ensure ongoing compliance and governance as an AWS environment changes over time?

AWS Control Tower ensures ongoing compliance and governance by using guardrails, both preventive and detective, to enforce policies. It also continuously monitors accounts using AWS Config and provides a dashboard to view the compliance status of the environment. New accounts created under Control Tower automatically inherit the organization’s governance policies, ensuring they are compliant from the start.

What kind of automation does AWS Control Tower provide for account provisioning and compliance monitoring?

AWS Control Tower provides automation for account provisioning through Account Factory, which streamlines the process of setting up and customizing new AWS accounts following the organization’s governance policies. For compliance monitoring, it uses integrated AWS services like AWS Config for evaluating and tracking the compliance status of AWS resources in real-time, helping to enforce and maintain compliance with the established guardrails.