AWS Cloud Operations Blog

Category: Security, Identity, & Compliance

Cross-account configuration with AWS AppConfig

Customers will often start using various AWS services through a single AWS account. As customers continue their AWS journey, they increase the number and diversity of workloads operating on AWS. Furthermore, as the number of users grows, managing this account becomes difficult and time consuming. Then, customers create more accounts for multiple users. This helps […]

Maintain compliance using Service Control Policies and ensure they are always applied

Many of our customers manage multiple AWS accounts in AWS Organizations and utilize Service Control Policies (SCPs) to centrally manage permissions in their organization. SCPs offer central control over the maximum available permissions for every account in your organization and can be applied to an account, organization units (OUs), or the organization as a whole […]

Proactively keep resources secure and compliant with AWS CloudFormation Hooks

Organizations want their developers to provision resources that they need to build applications while maintaining compliance with security, operational, and cost optimization best practices. Most solutions today inform customers about noncompliant resources only after those resources have been provisioned. These noncompliant resources exist until they are deleted or modified and increase security risk, operational overhead, […]

Organizing your AWS Control Tower landing zone with nested OUs

AWS Control Tower provides the easiest way for you to set up and govern your AWS environment, or landing zone, following prescriptive AWS best practices managed on your behalf. AWS Control Tower orchestrates multiple AWS services (AWS Organizations, AWS CloudFormation StackSets, Amazon S3, AWS Single Sign-On, AWS Config, AWS CloudTrail) to build a landing zone […]

Manage AWS account alternate contacts with Terraform

Managing AWS billing, support and service team notifications, and potential security events are critical for customers to ensure security, cost optimization and operational monitoring for their AWS deployments. Alternate contacts allow us to contact another person about issues with your account at the right time, even if you’re unavailable. AWS will send you operational notifications such […]

How to search through your AWS Systems Manager Session Manager console logs – Part 1

AWS Systems Manager (SSM) in combination with AWS Key Management Services (KMS), Amazon CloudWatch, and Amazon OpenSearch allow administrators to encrypt and securely store user session logs, as well as search the log data for information. These tools are easy to integrate and provide powerful analytical capabilities without the undifferentiated heavy lifting. In this series, […]

How to search through your AWS Systems Manager Session Manager console logs – Part 2

AWS System Manager in combination with Amazon Key Management Services (KMS), Amazon CloudWatch, and Amazon Open Search can provide administrators with the ability to encrypt and securely store user session logs and search the log data for information. These tools are easy to integrate and provide powerful analytical capabilities without undifferentiated heavy lifting. In the […]

Root and Nested Organizational Unit Support for Customizations for AWS Control Tower

Customers often use AWS accounts as a boundary to segregate their workloads, environments, business units, compliance requirements, or any type of logical isolation that suits their business. An AWS account serves as a hard boundary by design – each account is its own logical entity with controls, limits, and guardrails. Large customers typically have many […]

Managing configuration compliance across your organization with AWS Systems Manager Quick Setup

When running your applications on AWS, the number of resources you use increases as the demand of your applications keeps growing. Eventually, keeping track of your AWS resources and the relationships between them becomes challenging from a governance perspective. AWS Config lets you more easily assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. […]

Identity Guide – Preventive controls with AWS Identity – SCPs

AWS Identity offers a set of features that let customers apply preventive controls to their AWS environment. This includes AWS Organizations service control policies (SCPs). For you to achieve common preventive controls, SCPs provide preventative enforcement by offering central control over the maximum available permissions for all accounts in your organization. SCPs affect all users and roles […]