A Landing Zone is a well-architected, multi-account AWS environment that serves as a starting point for organizations to quickly deploy workloads and applications with confidence in their security and infrastructure. It provides a baseline environment following AWS best practices for account struct…A Landing Zone is a well-architected, multi-account AWS environment that serves as a starting point for organizations to quickly deploy workloads and applications with confidence in their security and infrastructure. It provides a baseline environment following AWS best practices for account structure, security, and governance.
Key components of Landing Zone design include:
**Multi-Account Structure**: Landing Zones implement a multi-account strategy using AWS Organizations. This typically includes separate accounts for logging, security, shared services, and workload accounts organized by environment (development, staging, production) or business unit.
**AWS Control Tower**: This service automates Landing Zone setup, providing pre-configured guardrails, account factory for provisioning new accounts, and a dashboard for visibility across the organization.
**Security Baseline**: Landing Zones establish security foundations including centralized logging with AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config for compliance monitoring, Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection, and AWS Security Hub for security posture management.
**Network Architecture**: A hub-and-spoke model using AWS Transit Gateway enables centralized network connectivity. Shared VPCs and network segmentation ensure proper isolation between workloads.
**Identity and Access Management**: Centralized identity management through AWS IAM Identity Center (formerly AWS SSO) provides federated access across accounts with consistent permission sets.
**Guardrails**: Preventive guardrails using Service Control Policies (SCPs) restrict actions, while detective guardrails using AWS Config rules identify non-compliant resources.
**Account Vending**: Automated account provisioning ensures new accounts inherit security baselines, network configurations, and compliance requirements consistently.
**Centralized Logging**: All accounts send logs to a dedicated logging account, ensuring audit trails cannot be tampered with by individual account owners.
Landing Zones accelerate cloud adoption while maintaining governance, enabling organizations to scale securely and efficiently across multiple accounts and workloads.
Landing Zone Design
What is a Landing Zone?
A Landing Zone is a well-architected, multi-account AWS environment that serves as a starting point for organizations to quickly deploy workloads and applications with security and governance built-in from the start. It provides a baseline environment following AWS best practices for identity management, governance, data security, network design, and logging.
Why is Landing Zone Design Important?
Landing zones are critical for several reasons:
1. Scalable Foundation: They establish a consistent, repeatable environment that can scale as your organization grows from a few accounts to hundreds or thousands.
2. Security and Compliance: Landing zones enforce security guardrails, centralized logging, and compliance controls across all accounts from day one.
3. Operational Efficiency: They reduce the time and effort required to provision new accounts while maintaining organizational standards.
4. Cost Management: Centralized billing and resource tagging strategies help track and optimize costs across the organization.
How Landing Zones Work
AWS Control Tower: The primary service for implementing landing zones. It automates the setup of a multi-account environment based on AWS best practices, including: - Account Factory for automated account provisioning - Guardrails (preventive and detective) for governance - A dashboard for visibility across accounts
Key Components:
1. Organization Unit (OU) Structure: Logical groupings of accounts such as Security, Sandbox, Workloads, and Infrastructure OUs.
2. Core Accounts: - Management Account (root account for AWS Organizations) - Log Archive Account (centralized logging with CloudTrail and Config logs) - Audit Account (security and compliance teams access)
3. Networking: Centralized networking through Transit Gateway, shared VPCs, or VPC peering strategies.
4. Identity Management: AWS IAM Identity Center (formerly AWS SSO) for centralized access management across accounts.
5. Guardrails: Preventive guardrails use SCPs to restrict actions, while detective guardrails use AWS Config rules to detect non-compliant resources.
Implementation Approaches
AWS Control Tower: Best for organizations wanting a managed solution with pre-configured guardrails and account factory.
Custom Landing Zone: Organizations with specific requirements may build custom solutions using AWS Organizations, CloudFormation StackSets, and custom automation.
AWS Landing Zone Solution: A legacy solution that predates Control Tower, still used by some organizations.
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Landing Zone Design
1. Know the Account Structure: Understand the purpose of Management, Log Archive, and Audit accounts. Questions often test whether you know which account should host specific resources.
2. Guardrails vs SCPs: Recognize that guardrails in Control Tower are implemented through SCPs (preventive) and Config rules (detective). Know when each type applies.
3. Account Factory: Remember that Account Factory uses AWS Service Catalog to provision new accounts with baseline configurations.
4. Centralized Logging: When questions mention compliance or audit requirements, think about the Log Archive account and centralized CloudTrail.
5. Network Patterns: Understand when to use Transit Gateway for hub-and-spoke networking versus VPC sharing for simpler scenarios.
6. Identity Federation: Questions about user access across multiple accounts typically point to IAM Identity Center as the solution.
7. Migration Scenarios: Control Tower can enroll existing accounts and OUs. Know the process for bringing existing infrastructure under Control Tower governance.
8. Look for Keywords: Terms like multi-account strategy, governance at scale, baseline security, and account provisioning suggest landing zone solutions.
9. Customization: Control Tower allows customizations through Customizations for AWS Control Tower (CfCT) solution for additional baseline configurations.
10. Regional Considerations: Control Tower operates in a home region but can govern accounts across multiple regions through guardrails.