AWS Organizations is a free account management service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. This service is essential for businesses that need to manage billing, access control, and compliance across multiple AWS accounts.
…AWS Organizations is a free account management service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. This service is essential for businesses that need to manage billing, access control, and compliance across multiple AWS accounts.
Key features of AWS Organizations include:
**Consolidated Billing**: One of the primary benefits is the ability to combine usage across all accounts in your organization. This allows you to receive a single bill for all accounts, making it easier to track costs and potentially qualify for volume pricing discounts. The more resources you use across accounts, the greater your potential savings.
**Service Control Policies (SCPs)**: These policies allow you to set permission guardrails that apply to all accounts within your organization. SCPs help ensure compliance by restricting which AWS services and actions member accounts can access.
**Organizational Units (OUs)**: You can group accounts into OUs based on business functions, departments, or environments (such as development, testing, and production). This hierarchical structure simplifies management and policy application.
**Account Management**: AWS Organizations makes it easy to create new AWS accounts programmatically, invite existing accounts to join your organization, and remove accounts when needed.
**Cost Allocation**: You can use cost allocation tags and access detailed billing reports to understand spending patterns across your organization.
**Reserved Instance Sharing**: Reserved Instances and Savings Plans benefits can be shared across accounts within an organization, maximizing cost efficiency.
For the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, understanding that AWS Organizations provides centralized governance, simplified billing through consolidation, and the ability to apply policies across multiple accounts is crucial. The service operates at no additional cost, making it an attractive option for enterprises seeking better control over their AWS environment while optimizing costs through aggregated usage benefits.
AWS Organizations - Complete Guide
What is AWS Organizations?
AWS Organizations is a free account management service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage. It provides centralized governance and management capabilities for your AWS environment.
Why is AWS Organizations Important?
Organizations is crucial for enterprises and growing businesses because it allows you to:
• Consolidate billing across all member accounts into a single payment method • Achieve volume discounts by aggregating usage across accounts • Apply policies across accounts for security and compliance • Automate account creation using APIs • Simplify cost tracking with consolidated reporting
How AWS Organizations Works
Key Components:
1. Management Account (formerly Master Account) - The account that creates the organization and has full administrative control
2. Member Accounts - All other accounts that belong to the organization
3. Organizational Units (OUs) - Containers for accounts that allow you to group accounts and apply policies hierarchically
4. Service Control Policies (SCPs) - Policies that define the maximum available permissions for member accounts
Policy Hierarchy:
SCPs are inherited from parent OUs. If an SCP denies an action at a higher level, that action is denied for all accounts below, regardless of IAM permissions.
Key Features:
• Consolidated Billing - One bill for all accounts with combined usage for volume pricing • All Features Mode - Enables SCPs and advanced organization features • Account Factory - Programmatic account creation • Centralized CloudTrail - Aggregate logs from all accounts
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on AWS Organizations
Remember these key points:
1. SCPs do NOT grant permissions - They only restrict what permissions can be used. Users still need IAM policies to grant access.
2. The management account is NOT affected by SCPs - Even if you attach a restrictive SCP, the management account retains full permissions.
3. Consolidated billing equals cost savings - When a question mentions needing volume discounts or combined billing, think Organizations.
4. OUs enable hierarchical policy application - Questions about applying different policies to different departments suggest using OUs.
5. AWS Organizations is FREE - There is no additional charge for using AWS Organizations.
6. SCPs use deny-by-default - If no SCP is attached, all actions are implicitly denied. The default FullAWSAccess SCP allows all actions.
Common Exam Scenarios:
• Multiple accounts need one invoice → Use Organizations with consolidated billing • Prevent certain services in specific accounts → Apply SCPs to restrict access • Group accounts by department or environment → Create OUs • Maximize EC2 or S3 discounts across accounts → Consolidated billing aggregates usage • Centralized compliance and governance → Organizations with SCPs
Watch out for trick questions:
• SCPs cannot grant permissions - they only set permission boundaries • Root user in member accounts IS affected by SCPs • Organizations works with AWS Control Tower for governance at scale