Creating multiple AWS accounts for different projects, teams, or environments is now considered a best practice. This approach enhances security, compliance, cost management, and operational efficiency, aligning with the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
Why Use Multiple AWS Accounts?
- 🔒 Security Isolation: Each account acts as a strong boundary, reducing the blast radius of potential breaches.
- 💰 Cost Transparency: Separate accounts make it easier to track spending per project, team, or client.
- ⚙️ Operational Efficiency: Different environments (development, staging, production) can be isolated, preventing accidental cross-impact.
- 📜 Compliance & Governance: Regulatory requirements often mandate strict isolation of workloads.
- 🧪 Innovation: Sandbox accounts allow experimentation without risking production systems.
Steps to Create and Organize Accounts
1. Set Up AWS Organizations
- Use AWS Organizations to centrally manage multiple accounts.
- Enable consolidated billing for simplified financial management.
- Group accounts into Organizational Units (OUs) based on function (e.g., Finance, R&D, Production).
2. Define Account Structure
A common enterprise structure includes:
- Shared Services Account – networking, logging, monitoring.
- Security Account – IAM, guardrails, compliance tools.
- Workload Accounts – separate accounts for each project or application.
- Sandbox Accounts – for testing and innovation.
3. Apply Guardrails with Service Control Policies (SCPs)
- Restrict risky actions (e.g., disabling logging).
- Enforce mandatory configurations across accounts.
- Ensure compliance with enterprise policies.
4. Enable Centralized Logging & Monitoring
- Use AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config across all accounts.
- Aggregate logs into a central account for visibility.
5. Automate Account Creation
- Use AWS Control Tower to automate account provisioning.
- Apply baseline security and compliance controls automatically.
Best Practices
- Separate environments (dev, staging, prod) into distinct accounts.
- Tag resources consistently for cost allocation.
- Use IAM roles instead of long-term credentials.
- Regularly review SCPs and IAM policies to adapt to evolving needs.
- Implement FinOps practices to monitor and optimize costs.
Conclusion
For enterprises, creating multiple AWS accounts per project is not just a technical choice. It is a strategic move. By leveraging AWS Organizations, Control Tower, and SCPs, businesses gain clarity, compliance, and scalability. This multi-account strategy ensures that as projects grow, the enterprise cloud environment remains secure, efficient, and cost-effective.
