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AWS Organizations

What is it​

An account management service that allows you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into a single organization that you create and manage centrally.

What it's for​

Simplify the management of complex AWS environments with multiple accounts, enabling centralized policy enforcement, automated account creation, and consolidated billing management.

Use cases​

  • Centralized management of multiple AWS accounts
  • Enforcing security and compliance policies across all accounts
  • Automating the creation of new accounts for different teams or projects
  • Consolidated billing for all organization accounts
  • Resource sharing between accounts

Key points​

  • Master account: A central account to manage the organization
  • Organizational Units (OUs): Allows grouping accounts into hierarchies for granular policy application
  • Service Control Policies (SCPs): Allow control over the maximum permissions available to accounts in an OU
  • Consolidated billing: Aggregates billing for all accounts into a single invoice
  • Integration: Integrates with other AWS services for management and security

Comparison​

  • AWS Organizations: Simplifies management, security, and billing of multi-account AWS environments, enabling centralized governance and automation. Essential for companies with a significant AWS footprint.
  • Individual account management: Each account is managed independently, which can be complex, error-prone, and difficult to scale in environments with many accounts.