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AWS Organizations

AWS Organizations Overview

  • Definition: AWS Organizations is a service for centrally managing and governing multiple AWS accounts, enabling consolidated billing, hierarchical account organization, and policy-based control.
  • Key Features:
    • Organizes accounts into Organizational Units (OUs) for hierarchical management.
    • Enforces governance using Service Control Policies (SCPs) for access control.
    • Supports consolidated billing to aggregate costs and share savings.
    • Enables delegated administration for specific services and OUs.
    • Integrates with AWS services like IAM Identity Center, CloudTrail, RAM, and Control Tower.
  • Use Cases: Manage multi-account environments, enforce security policies, centralize billing, share resources across accounts.
  • Key Updates (2024–2025):
    • Enhanced SCPs: Finer-grained controls with tag-based conditions (October 2024).
    • Delegated Administration: Expanded to more services (e.g., CloudTrail, RAM) (March 2024).
    • FIPS 140-2 Compliance: Enhanced for GovCloud (October 2024).
    • Security Hub Integration: Centralized policy compliance monitoring (January 2025).

1. AWS Organizations Core Concepts

Components

  • Organization:
    • A collection of AWS accounts managed as a single entity.
    • Includes one management account and multiple member accounts.
    • Explanation: E.g., organization with 10 accounts for dev, prod, and security.
  • Management Account:
    • The primary account that creates and manages the organization.
    • Has full control over all accounts and policies.
    • Explanation: E.g., management account applies SCPs to OUs.
  • Member Account:
    • Accounts invited or created within the organization, subject to SCPs.
    • Explanation: E.g., member account for dev team.
  • Organizational Unit (OU):
    • Logical grouping of accounts for applying policies and governance.
    • Supports nested OUs (up to 5 levels).
    • Explanation: E.g., OU for “Production” with sub-OUs for “App1” and “App2”.
  • Service Control Policy (SCP):
    • JSON-based policy to allow or deny actions across accounts in an OU or account.
    • Applied at OU or account level, not users/roles (unlike IAM policies).
    • Explanation: E.g., SCP denies s3:PutObject for public buckets.
  • Consolidated Billing:
    • Aggregates billing across all accounts, applies volume discounts, and shares savings (e.g., Savings Plans, Reserved Instances).
    • Explanation: E.g., single invoice for 50 accounts.
  • Delegated Administration:
    • Allows member accounts to manage specific services for the organization (e.g., CloudTrail, RAM).
    • Explanation: E.g., delegate CloudTrail management to Audit account.

Key Concepts

  • Root OU:
    • Top-level container for all OUs and accounts in the organization.
    • Explanation: E.g., Root OU applies global SCPs.
  • Policy Inheritance:
    • SCPs applied to parent OU affect all child OUs and accounts.
    • Explicit Deny overrides Allow in child SCPs.
    • Explanation: E.g., Root SCP denies ec2:RunInstances; child OU cannot override.
  • Trusted Access:
    • Enables AWS services (e.g., Control Tower, CloudTrail) to operate across the organization.
    • Explanation: E.g., enable trusted access for CloudTrail organization trails.
  • Account Creation/Invitation:
    • Management account creates new accounts or invites existing ones.
    • Explanation: E.g., create a new account for testing.
  • Tag Policies:
    • Standardize resource tagging across accounts for cost tracking and governance.
    • Explanation: E.g., enforce tag Environment=Prod on EC2 instances.

Key Notes:

  • Exam Relevance: Understand OUs, SCPs, consolidated billing, and delegated administration.
  • Mastery Tip: Compare AWS Organizations vs. Control Tower vs. manual multi-account management.

2. AWS Organizations Performance Features

Organizations optimizes multi-account management.

Low Latency

  • Purpose: Fast account and policy operations.
  • Features:
    • Account creation in seconds via API or console.
    • SCPs applied instantly across OUs/accounts.
  • Explanation: E.g., create a new account in <1 minute.
  • Exam Tip: Highlight rapid account provisioning for performance.

High Throughput

  • Purpose: Handle large-scale environments.
  • Features:
    • Supports thousands of accounts and OUs.
    • Processes multiple SCP updates concurrently.
  • Explanation: E.g., apply SCPs to 1,000 accounts simultaneously.
  • Exam Tip: Use for enterprise-scale governance.

Scalability

  • Purpose: Support growing organizations.
  • Features:
    • Scales to tens of thousands of accounts (default quota: 1,000 accounts).
    • Enhanced SCPs with tag-based conditions (2024).
    • Delegated administration reduces management account load.
  • Explanation: E.g., manage 5,000 accounts across 10 OUs.
  • Exam Tip: Emphasize scalability for large organizations.

Key Notes:

  • Performance: Fast operations + high throughput + scalability = efficient governance.
  • Exam Tip: Highlight SCPs and delegated administration for speed.

3. AWS Organizations Resilience Features

Resilience ensures reliable account management.

Multi-AZ/Region Redundancy

  • Purpose: Survive failures.
  • Features:
    • Organizations is a global service, highly available across Regions.
    • SCPs and billing data stored in multi-AZ infrastructure.
  • Explanation: E.g., SCPs remain active if us-east-1 fails.
  • Exam Tip: Highlight global resilience for HA.

Continuous Governance:

  • Purpose: Uninterrupted policy enforcement.
  • Features:
    • SCPs enforced 24/7 across accounts.
    • Trusted access ensures service integration (e.g., CloudTrail).
  • Explanation: E.g., SCP denies public S3 buckets continuously.
  • Exam Tip: Use SCPs for consistent governance.

Monitoring and Recovery:

  • Purpose: Track and respond to issues.
  • Features:
    • CloudTrail logs Organizations API calls (e.g., CreateAccount, AttachPolicy).
    • Security Hub detects non-compliant SCP configurations (2025).
    • Consolidated billing dashboard tracks account usage.
    • Explanation: E.g., audit unauthorized InviteAccountToOrganization.
  • Exam Tip: Use CloudTrail and Security Hub for resilience.

Backup and Recovery:

  • Purpose: Protect organization structure.
  • Features:
    • Account metadata recoverable via AWS Support.
    • SCPs and tag policies versioned for rollback.
  • Explanation: E.g., restore deleted OU via Support.
  • Exam Tip: Highlight recovery for governance.

Key Notes:

  • Resilience: Multi-AZ + continuous governance + monitoring = reliable management.
  • Exam Tip: Design resilient organizations with SCPs and CloudTrail.

4. AWS Organizations Security Features

Security is a core focus for Organizations in SAA-C03.

Access Control

  • IAM Policies:
    • Restrict Organizations actions (organizations:CreateAccount, organizations:AttachPolicy).
    • Management account requires explicit permissions.
    • Example: {"Effect": "Allow", "Action": "organizations:CreateOrganization", "Resource": "*"}.
  • SCPs:
    • Deny or allow actions at OU/account level.
    • Enhanced with tag-based conditions (2024).
    • Explanation: E.g., SCP denies s3:PutObject unless tagged Environment=Prod.
  • IAM Identity Center:
    • SSO for federated access to member accounts.
    • Explanation: E.g., grant dev team access to Sandbox OU accounts.
  • Exam Tip: Practice SCPs and IAM policies for governance.

Encryption

  • In Transit:
    • HTTPS for Organizations API calls and console.
    • Explanation: E.g., secure CreateAccount call.
  • At Rest:
    • Metadata encrypted with AWS-managed keys.
    • Integrates with KMS-encrypted services (e.g., CloudTrail logs).
    • Explanation: E.g., KMS encrypts organization CloudTrail bucket.
  • Exam Tip: Highlight KMS integration for compliance.

Compliance:

  • Purpose: Meet regulatory standards.
  • Features:
    • Supports HIPAA, PCI, SOC, ISO, GDPR, FIPS 140-2 (GovCloud).
    • Security Hub detects non-compliant SCPs (2025).
    • Tag policies ensure compliant tagging.
  • Explanation: E.g., enforce MFA across accounts for PCI compliance.
  • Exam Tip: Use Security Hub and SCPs for compliance.

Auditing:

  • Purpose: Track organization actions.
  • Features:
    • CloudTrail logs all Organizations API calls.
    • Security Hub monitors SCP compliance (2025).
    • Consolidated billing tracks account activity.
    • Explanation: E.g., audit CreatePolicy for compliance.
  • Exam Tip: Use CloudTrail for auditing.

Key Notes:

  • Security: IAM + SCPs + encryption + auditing = secure governance.
  • Exam Tip: Configure SCPs, IAM Identity Center, and Security Hub.

5. AWS Organizations Cost Optimization

Cost efficiency is a key exam domain.

Pricing

  • Organizations: Free (charges apply for integrated services).
  • Underlying Services:
    • CloudTrail: $2/100,000 events.
    • RAM: Free (resource costs apply).
    • IAM Identity Center: $0.03/active user/month.
  • Consolidated Billing:
    • Aggregates costs, applies volume discounts, shares Savings Plans/Reserved Instances.
  • Example:
    • Organization with 10 accounts, 1M CloudTrail events, 50 IAM Identity Center users:
      • Organizations: $0.
      • CloudTrail: 1M × $2/100K = $20.
      • IAM Identity Center: 50 × $0.03 = $1.50.
      • Total: $20 + $1.50 = $21.50/month.
  • Free Tier: None for Organizations; resource free tiers apply (e.g., CloudTrail).

Cost Strategies

  • Consolidated Billing:
    • Share Savings Plans and Reserved Instances to reduce costs.
    • Explanation: E.g., share EC2 Savings Plan to save 20% ($100/month).
  • Limit Accounts:
    • Create only necessary accounts to reduce overhead (e.g., CloudTrail costs).
    • Explanation: E.g., reduce from 50 to 20 accounts to save $8/month on CloudTrail.
  • Optimize SCPs:
    • Use tag-based SCPs to limit costly resources (e.g., deny large EC2 instances).
    • Explanation: E.g., deny m5.xlarge to save $0.19/hour.
  • Tagging:
    • Enforce tag policies for cost allocation.
    • Explanation: E.g., tag accounts with “Project:App”.
  • Monitor Usage:
    • Use CloudWatch and Cost Explorer to track organization costs.
    • Explanation: E.g., reduce CloudTrail events to save $10/month.
  • Delegated Administration:
    • Offload tasks to member accounts to reduce management account costs.
    • Explanation: E.g., delegate RAM to save management account resources.

Key Notes:

  • Cost Savings: Consolidated billing + optimized SCPs + tagging = lower costs.
  • Exam Tip: Calculate savings from consolidated billing and SCPs.

6. AWS Organizations Advanced Features

Enhanced SCPs:

  • Purpose: Finer-grained governance.
  • Features:
    • Tag-based conditions for dynamic policies (2024).
    • Explanation: E.g., deny ec2:RunInstances unless tagged Environment=Dev.
  • Exam Tip: Know tag-based SCPs for flexibility.

Delegated Administration:

  • Purpose: Distribute management tasks.
  • Features:
    • Expanded to CloudTrail, RAM, IAM Identity Center (2024).
    • Explanation: E.g., delegate CloudTrail trail management to Audit account.
  • Exam Tip: Use for enterprise efficiency.

Security Hub Integration:

  • Purpose: Centralized compliance.
  • Features:
    • Detects non-compliant SCPs or account configurations (2025).
    • Aggregates findings with GuardDuty, Inspector.
    • Explanation: E.g., flag SCP allowing public S3 buckets.
  • Exam Tip: Use Security Hub for compliance monitoring.

Tag Policies:

  • Purpose: Standardize tagging.
  • Features:
    • Enforce consistent tags across accounts.
    • Explanation: E.g., require CostCenter tag on all resources.
  • Exam Tip: Use for cost tracking and governance.

Trusted Access:

  • Purpose: Enable service integration.
  • Features:
    • Supports Control Tower, CloudTrail, RAM, and more.
    • Explanation: E.g., enable trusted access for organization-wide CloudTrail.
  • Exam Tip: Know for service integration.

Key Notes:

  • Flexibility: Enhanced SCPs + delegated administration + tag policies = advanced governance.
  • Exam Tip: Master SCPs, delegated administration, and Security Hub.

7. AWS Organizations Use Cases

Understand practical applications.

Multi-Account Management

  • Setup: OUs for dev, prod, security; SCPs for governance.
  • Features: Centralized account management.
  • Explanation: E.g., manage 100 accounts with Prod and Dev OUs.

Security Governance

  • Setup: SCPs to restrict actions, Security Hub for monitoring.
  • Features: Enforce encryption, limit Regions.
  • Explanation: E.g., deny public S3 buckets across accounts.

Consolidated Billing

  • Setup: Single billing for all accounts, share Savings Plans.
  • Features: Volume discounts, cost tracking.
  • Explanation: E.g., save 15% on EC2 with shared Savings Plan.

Delegated Administration

  • Setup: Delegate CloudTrail to Audit account, RAM to Shared Services.
  • Features: Distribute management tasks.
  • Explanation: E.g., Audit account manages organization trails.

8. AWS Organizations vs. Other Governance Tools

Feature Organizations Control Tower RAM
Type Account Management Multi-Account Governance Resource Sharing
Focus OUs, SCPs, billing Landing zone, guardrails Share resources
Scope AWS accounts AWS multi-account AWS resources
Cost Free (resource costs) Free (resource costs) Free (resource costs)
Use Case Account governance Automated landing zone Share subnets, KMS keys

Explanation:

  • Organizations: Core account management and SCPs.
  • Control Tower: Automated governance with landing zones.
  • RAM: Resource sharing across accounts.

9. Detailed Explanations for Mastery

  • Enhanced SCPs:
    • Example: Deny s3:PutObject unless tagged Project=App.
    • Why It Matters: Dynamic governance (2024).
  • Delegated Administration:
    • Example: Delegate RAM to Shared Services account.
    • Why It Matters: Reduces management account load (2024).
  • Security Hub Integration:
    • Example: Flag SCP allowing unencrypted EBS volumes.
    • Why It Matters: Centralized compliance (2025).

10. Quick Reference Table

Feature Purpose Key Detail Exam Relevance
Organization Manage accounts Management + member accounts Core Concept
OU Group accounts Nested up to 5 levels Core Concept
SCP Governance policies Tag-based conditions (2024) Core Concept
Consolidated Billing Aggregate costs Shares Savings Plans Cost Optimization
Delegated Admin Distribute tasks Expanded services (2024) Flexibility
Tag Policies Standardize tagging Enforce cost allocation tags Security, Cost
Security Hub Compliance monitoring Non-compliant SCPs (2025) Security, Resilience