AWS Config is a fully managed service that provides AWS resource inventory, configuration history, and configuration change notifications to enable security and governance. It continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations, allowing you to automate the evaluation of recorded con…AWS Config is a fully managed service that provides AWS resource inventory, configuration history, and configuration change notifications to enable security and governance. It continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations, allowing you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.
Key Features:
1. **Resource Inventory**: AWS Config discovers existing AWS resources, records their current configuration, and captures any changes. This gives you a complete inventory of all resources in your AWS account.
2. **Configuration History**: The service maintains a detailed history of configuration changes over time. You can see what a resource looked like at any point in the past, which is crucial for troubleshooting and compliance auditing.
3. **Config Rules**: You can create rules that represent your ideal configuration settings. AWS Config continuously evaluates your resources against these rules and flags any non-compliant resources. AWS provides managed rules for common scenarios, and you can also create custom rules.
4. **Compliance Dashboard**: The service provides a dashboard showing your overall compliance status, making it easy to identify resources that need attention.
5. **Integration with Other Services**: AWS Config integrates with AWS CloudTrail for API logging, Amazon SNS for notifications, and AWS Systems Manager for remediation actions.
Security and Compliance Benefits:
- **Audit Trail**: Maintains detailed records for regulatory compliance requirements
- **Security Analysis**: Helps identify security vulnerabilities by tracking configuration changes
- **Change Management**: Tracks who made changes and when they occurred
- **Automated Remediation**: Can trigger automatic fixes when non-compliant configurations are detected
AWS Config is essential for organizations that need to maintain strict compliance standards such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or SOC. It helps answer questions like "What did my infrastructure look like last month?" and "Are all my S3 buckets properly encrypted?"
AWS Config - Complete Guide for AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam
What is AWS Config?
AWS Config is a fully managed service that provides you with an AWS resource inventory, configuration history, and configuration change notifications to enable security and governance. It continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.
Why is AWS Config Important?
AWS Config is crucial for several reasons:
1. Compliance Auditing: Organizations need to demonstrate compliance with internal policies and external regulations. AWS Config provides a detailed view of the configuration of AWS resources and how they have changed over time.
2. Security Analysis: By tracking configuration changes, security teams can identify potential vulnerabilities or unauthorized modifications to resources.
3. Change Management: AWS Config helps track changes to resources, making it easier to troubleshoot operational issues by correlating configuration changes with specific events.
4. Resource Inventory: It provides a complete inventory of all AWS resources in your account, helping with resource management and cost optimization.
How AWS Config Works
Step 1 - Resource Discovery: AWS Config discovers supported AWS resources in your account and generates a configuration item for each resource.
Step 2 - Configuration Recording: The service continuously records configuration changes to your resources and stores this data in an Amazon S3 bucket.
Step 3 - Config Rules: You can create AWS Config Rules that represent your ideal configuration settings. These rules can be AWS managed rules or custom rules you define using AWS Lambda.
Step 4 - Evaluation: AWS Config evaluates your resources against these rules and flags resources as compliant or non-compliant.
Step 5 - Notifications: You can set up Amazon SNS notifications to alert you when resources are non-compliant or when configuration changes occur.
Key Features of AWS Config
- Configuration History: Access historical configurations of resources to understand what changed and when - Configuration Snapshots: Get point-in-time snapshots of all resource configurations - Managed Rules: Use pre-built rules created by AWS for common compliance scenarios - Custom Rules: Create your own rules using AWS Lambda functions - Conformance Packs: Deploy a collection of Config rules and remediation actions as a single entity - Aggregators: Collect Config data from multiple accounts and regions into a single view
Common AWS Config Rules Examples
- s3-bucket-public-read-prohibited: Checks if S3 buckets allow public read access - encrypted-volumes: Checks if EBS volumes are encrypted - ec2-instance-managed-by-systems-manager: Checks if EC2 instances are managed by AWS Systems Manager - rds-instance-public-access-check: Checks if RDS instances are publicly accessible
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on AWS Config
Tip 1: When you see questions about tracking configuration changes or configuration history of AWS resources, AWS Config is likely the answer.
Tip 2: Questions mentioning compliance evaluation, compliance auditing, or checking resources against desired configurations point to AWS Config.
Tip 3: Remember that AWS Config is about WHAT your resources look like and how they are configured, not WHO made the changes (that would be AWS CloudTrail).
Tip 4: If a question asks about ensuring resources meet organizational standards or internal policies, think AWS Config Rules.
Tip 5: AWS Config is NOT a preventive control - it detects and reports non-compliance but does not prevent misconfigurations from being created. For prevention, think IAM policies or AWS Organizations SCPs.
Tip 6: Distinguish between AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail: - AWS Config = Configuration state and compliance - AWS CloudTrail = API calls and user activity
Tip 7: Questions about multi-account compliance views or aggregating compliance data across accounts relate to AWS Config Aggregators.
Tip 8: Remember that AWS Config stores configuration data in Amazon S3 and can send notifications via Amazon SNS.