AWS Account structure for organizational requirements is a critical aspect of designing solutions for complex enterprises. Organizations typically implement a multi-account strategy using AWS Organizations to manage multiple AWS accounts centrally. This approach provides several benefits including …AWS Account structure for organizational requirements is a critical aspect of designing solutions for complex enterprises. Organizations typically implement a multi-account strategy using AWS Organizations to manage multiple AWS accounts centrally. This approach provides several benefits including security isolation, billing separation, and workload segmentation. The recommended account structure follows a hierarchical model with Organizational Units (OUs) that group accounts based on business functions, environments, or compliance requirements. A typical structure includes a Management Account (formerly Master Account) at the root level, which handles consolidated billing, Organization policies, and administrative controls. Security accounts host centralized security services like AWS Security Hub, GuardDuty, and centralized logging through CloudTrail. Shared Services accounts contain common infrastructure components such as Active Directory, DNS, and shared networking resources. Production, Development, and Staging accounts separate workloads by environment, reducing blast radius and enabling different governance policies. Sandbox accounts allow experimentation while isolating potential risks from production systems. Service Control Policies (SCPs) enforce guardrails across accounts and OUs, preventing actions that violate organizational policies. AWS Control Tower automates the setup of a well-architected multi-account environment with pre-configured guardrails and account provisioning through Account Factory. Cross-account access patterns utilize IAM roles with trust relationships, enabling secure resource sharing between accounts. AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) facilitates sharing of specific resources like VPC subnets, Transit Gateways, and License Manager configurations across accounts. Consolidated billing through AWS Organizations provides cost visibility and volume discounts across all member accounts. This structure supports compliance requirements by isolating regulated workloads, implementing consistent tagging strategies, and enabling centralized audit trails. Effective account structure design considers scalability, allowing organizations to add accounts as needed while maintaining governance and operational efficiency.
Account Structure for Organizational Requirements - AWS Solutions Architect Professional Guide
Why Account Structure Matters
Account structure is fundamental to enterprise AWS deployments because it determines how you manage security boundaries, cost allocation, resource isolation, and governance at scale. Poor account structure decisions early on can lead to security vulnerabilities, compliance failures, and operational complexity that becomes increasingly difficult to remediate as organizations grow.
What is AWS Account Structure?
AWS account structure refers to the strategic organization of multiple AWS accounts within an enterprise using AWS Organizations. This includes defining organizational units (OUs), implementing service control policies (SCPs), and establishing patterns for account provisioning and management.
Key Components:
AWS Organizations - The central service for managing multiple accounts as a single unit
Organizational Units (OUs) - Logical groupings of accounts based on function, environment, or business unit
Service Control Policies (SCPs) - Permission guardrails that define maximum available permissions for accounts
Management Account - The root account that creates and manages the organization
How Account Structure Works
1. Hierarchical Organization AWS Organizations creates a tree structure with the management account at the root. OUs can be nested up to five levels deep, allowing granular policy application.
2. Policy Inheritance SCPs attached to parent OUs automatically apply to all child OUs and accounts. This enables consistent governance while allowing exceptions through policy design.
3. Common OU Patterns - Security OU: Contains accounts for centralized logging, security tooling, and audit - Infrastructure OU: Shared services, networking, and identity accounts - Workloads OU: Production, development, and testing environments - Sandbox OU: Experimental accounts with relaxed controls - Suspended OU: Decommissioned accounts pending deletion
4. Account Vending AWS Control Tower and custom solutions automate account creation with baseline configurations, ensuring consistency and compliance from day one.
Best Practices for Account Structure
- Use dedicated accounts for centralized logging (CloudTrail, Config, VPC Flow Logs) - Separate production from non-production workloads at the account level - Create a dedicated network account for shared VPC infrastructure and Transit Gateway - Implement a security account for GuardDuty, Security Hub, and IAM Access Analyzer delegation - Apply least-privilege SCPs that deny risky actions organization-wide - Use AWS Control Tower for standardized multi-account setup with built-in guardrails
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Account Structure
Tip 1: Recognize Security Boundary Requirements When questions mention isolating sensitive workloads, regulatory compliance, or blast radius reduction, the answer typically involves separate accounts rather than IAM policies alone.
Tip 2: Understand SCP Behavior SCPs do not grant permissions - they only restrict what IAM policies can allow. SCPs do not affect the management account. Remember that an explicit deny in an SCP overrides any allow.
Tip 3: Know Control Tower vs Organizations Control Tower provides opinionated best practices and automated guardrails. Choose Organizations alone when you need custom structures that do not fit Control Tower patterns.
Tip 4: Centralized Logging Patterns Questions about audit trails across multiple accounts should point toward a dedicated log archive account with S3 bucket policies preventing deletion and CloudTrail organization trails.
Tip 5: Cost Allocation For cost management questions, remember that consolidated billing comes with Organizations by default. Use account-level separation combined with cost allocation tags for accurate chargeback.
Tip 6: Watch for Scale Indicators Large enterprises with multiple business units typically need deeper OU hierarchies. Smaller organizations may function well with flatter structures.
Tip 7: Network Architecture Alignment Account structure should complement network design. Shared VPC patterns, Transit Gateway, and Resource Access Manager (RAM) questions often connect to account organization decisions.
Common Exam Scenarios
- Mergers and acquisitions requiring account consolidation - Compliance requirements mandating workload isolation - Cost optimization through consolidated billing and reserved instance sharing - Implementing preventive controls across hundreds of accounts - Enabling cross-account access for centralized security monitoring