Control Tower

In this lesson, we explore AWS Control Tower—a powerful service that simplifies the setup, maintenance, and security of multi-AWS account environments. AWS Control Tower serves as a centralized account orchestrator that streamlines the creation of AWS accounts while automatically applying the necessary configurations and best practices.

When a team member requests a new AWS account, the process is as simple as clicking a button. The new account is provisioned with all the required permissions, guardrails, and policies, ensuring it is secure and compliant from the start.

Built on top of AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower leverages features such as centralized billing and account management. Unlike AWS Organizations, which requires manual configuration for creating and managing accounts, Control Tower automates these processes to help you quickly launch secure, production-ready environments.

Control Tower also sets up a landing zone, a secure foundation for a well-architected, multi-account environment. This landing zone deploys a collection of best practices for services like AWS CloudTrail and AWS Organizations, eliminating the need for manual setup and enabling rapid deployment of new applications and services.

Guardrails in AWS Control Tower

When you provision a new account, AWS Control Tower enforces several guardrails to maintain security and operational best practices. There are two types of guardrails:

1. Preventive Guardrails
   These use IAM policies, AWS Config rules, and Service Control Policies (SCPs) to proactively block actions that do not comply with established standards. For example, a preventive guardrail can block the creation of a publicly accessible S3 bucket, protecting your data from unintended exposure.

2. Detective Guardrails
   Instead of blocking actions outright, detective guardrails monitor and log potential issues. For instance, if a user launches an EC2 instance without a key pair, the detective guardrail will log the event, report it, and trigger an alert for further review. This approach supports thorough forensic analysis and incident response.

All guardrails are preconfigured within AWS Control Tower, ensuring that every new account automatically aligns with your organization’s security baseline.

Consider these examples:

• A user attempts to create a public S3 bucket. The preventive guardrail identifies this misconfiguration and blocks the action.
• A user launches an EC2 instance without specifying a key pair. The detective guardrail logs the activity and notifies administrators about the non-compliance.

Account Factory

AWS Control Tower simplifies the onboarding of new AWS accounts with its Account Factory. This feature automates the provisioning process by applying organizational policies, baselines, and the necessary guardrails consistently across all accounts.

Key Features of AWS Control Tower

AWS Control Tower enhances your cloud infrastructure management with the following benefits:

Conclusion

AWS Control Tower provides an automated, secure, and efficient method to manage multi-account AWS environments. With its robust features—including a well-architected landing zone, comprehensive guardrails, and the highly efficient Account Factory—this service is indispensable for organizations looking to enforce best practices while maintaining agile and scalable cloud operations.

For more details on how AWS Control Tower can transform your cloud strategy, explore additional resources and AWS documentation on multi-account management and governance.