Feb 9

12 min read

AWS Landing Zone: Mastering the Architecture — Best Practices and Design Secrets

Brainboard: Design, deploy and manage AWS Landing Zone.

I. Introduction

AWS Landing Zone is a service that makes it easy to set up a secure, multi-account AWS environment. It enables central management of multiple accounts, automated setup of a landing zone, and governance. However, to truly master the AWS Landing Zone architecture, it is essential to have a deep understanding of its core components and design considerations. This article will provide you with best practices and design secrets for mastering the AWS Landing Zone architecture. It will cover the core components of the service such as AWS Organizations, Control Tower, Service Catalog, and Resource Access Manager (RAM) and additional components to consider like AWS Config, CloudFormation, CloudTrail, and more. Additionally, we will delve into design considerations such as scaling and resiliency, security and compliance, multi-account management, and more. By the end of this article, you will have a comprehensive understanding of how to optimize your AWS Landing Zone architecture for optimal efficiency and security.

II. Core Components of AWS Landing Zone Architecture

AWS Landing Zone Architecture on Brainboard.co

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-west-2"
}

resource "aws_organizations_organization" "example" {
  feature_set = "ALL"
}resource "aws_landing_zone_landing_zone" "example" {
  organization_id = aws_organizations_organization.example.id
  landing_zone_name = "example"
}

AWS Organizations is a service that enables central management of multiple AWS accounts. It allows you to create and manage accounts in a centralized manner and apply policies across your organization. One best practice for setting up and using AWS Organizations in an AWS Landing Zone is to use it to create a multi-account environment. This allows for the separation of data storage and processing, which can help to improve security and compliance. Another best practice is to use AWS Organizations to create a payer account and link it with multiple linked accounts. This allows you to centrally manage and monitor the costs of your linked accounts.
AWS Control Tower is a service that automates the set-up of a secure, compliant landing zone. It provides a set of blueprints that you can use to set up your landing zone, and it also provides automated guardrails to help you to comply with security and compliance requirements. One best practice for setting up and using AWS Control Tower in an AWS Landing Zone is to use it to set up a landing zone in your payer account. This allows you to centrally manage and monitor your landing zone. Another best practice is to use AWS Control Tower to set up guardrails for your landing zone. This allows you to ensure that your landing zone is secure and compliant.
AWS Service Catalog is a service that enables central management of approved IT services. It allows you to create, manage, and distribute IT services, and it also allows you to control access to these services. One best practice for setting up and using AWS Service Catalog in an AWS Landing Zone is to use it to centrally manage and distribute IT services. This allows you to ensure that your IT services are consistent across your organization. Another best practice is to use AWS Service Catalog to control access to IT services. This allows you to ensure that only authorized users have access to your IT services.
AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) is a service that enables sharing of resources across accounts. It allows you to share resources, such as subnets and security groups, across accounts, and it also allows you to control access to these resources. One best practice for setting up and using RAM in an AWS Landing Zone is to use it to share resources across accounts. This allows you to ensure that your resources are consistent across your organization. Another best practice is to use RAM to control access to resources. This allows you to ensure that only authorized users have access to your resources.

In summary, the core components of the AWS Landing Zone architecture are AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, AWS Service Catalog, and AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM). Using these components in a coordinated way allows you to set up a secure and compliant multi-account environment, and automate the management of IT services and resources. By following the best practices mentioned above, you can optimize your AWS Landing Zone architecture and ensure that your organization’s AWS environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective.

III. Additional Components to consider

Building Landing Zone with AWS & Brainboard

When it comes to setting up and managing an AWS Landing Zone, there are several additional components to consider beyond the core components of AWS Organizations, Control Tower, Service Catalog, and Resource Access Manager (RAM). These additional components can help to further optimize and secure your AWS environment.

One additional component to consider is AWS Config. AWS Config is a service that enables you to track changes to your AWS resources and assess compliance with your internal policies. It can be used to track changes made to your landing zone and ensure that your environment remains compliant with your organization’s policies.
Another additional component to consider is AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation is a service that enables you to use templates to provision and manage AWS resources. It can be used to automate the creation and management of resources in your landing zone, such as VPCs, subnets, and security groups. This can help to improve the consistency and repeatability of your landing zone.
AWS CloudTrail is another additional component to consider. It is a service that enables you to track user activity in your AWS environment, including changes made to your landing zone. This can help to improve the security and compliance of your landing zone by providing a record of who made changes and when.
AWS CloudWatch is another additional component to consider. AWS CloudWatch is a service that enables you to monitor your AWS environment, including the resources in your landing zone. It can be used to set up alarms and notifications to alert you when certain thresholds are met, such as when the number of running EC2 instances exceeds a certain number. This can help to improve the availability and scalability of your landing zone.
AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) is another important additional component to consider. AWS IAM is a service that enables you to manage access to your AWS resources, including those in your landing zone. It can be used to create and manage users, groups, and roles, and to control access to your resources. This can help to improve the security of your landing zone by ensuring that only authorized users have access to your resources.
AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is another additional component to consider. AWS VPC is a service that enables you to create a virtual network in the AWS cloud, including a subnet, Internet Gateway, and security group. It can be used to create a virtual network for your landing zone and segment it according to your organization’s needs, this can improve security and compliance by isolating resources.
AWS Direct Connect is another additional component to consider. AWS Direct Connect is a service that enables you to establish a dedicated network connection between your on-premises data center and your AWS resources, including those in your landing zone. This can help to improve the performance and reliability of your landing zone by reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent over the public internet.
Another additional component to consider is AWS Elasticsearch. AWS Elasticsearch is a service that enables you to set up and run an Elasticsearch cluster in the AWS cloud. It can be used to store and search through large amounts of log data generated by your landing zone, such as CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, and CloudWatch logs. This can help to improve the monitoring and troubleshooting of your landing zone.
Additionally, you may consider using other AWS services such as AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, AWS AppSync, AWS AppConfig, AWS Step Functions, AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) and AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) to manage and orchestrate different workloads, automate processes and integrate with other third-party tools.

In conclusion, there are several additional components to consider when setting up and managing an AWS Landing Zone. These components can help to further optimize and secure your AWS environment. By considering and utilizing these additional components, along with best practices and design secrets for mastering the AWS Landing Zone architecture, you can ensure that your organization’s AWS environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective.

IV. Design Considerations

When setting up and managing an AWS Landing Zone, there are several design considerations to keep in mind to ensure that your environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective.

jobs:
  deploy_landing_zone:
    name: Deploy Landing Zone
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - name: Checkout code
      uses: actions/checkout@v2    - name: Set up Terraform
      run: |
        sudo apt-get -qq update
        sudo apt-get -qq install -y unzip
        wget <https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/0.15.1/terraform_0.15.1_linux_amd64.zip>
        unzip terraform_0.15.1_linux_amd64.zip
        sudo mv terraform /usr/local/bin/    - name: Run OPA security check
      run: |
        wget <https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/releases/download/v0.22.3/opa_linux_amd64>
        chmod +x opa_linux_amd64
        sudo mv opa_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/opa
        opa eval --format pretty --data terraform.rego --input terraform.tfplan 'data.terraform.compliance'    - name: Run Infracost cloud spend analysis
      run: |
        wget <https://github.com/infracost/infracost/releases/download/v0.11.0/infracost_0.11.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz>
        tar -xvzf infracost_0.11.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
        sudo mv infracost /usr/local/bin/
        infracost --tfplan terraform.tfplan    - name: Deploy with Terraform
      run: |
        terraform init
        terraform apply -auto-approve -var-file=terraform.tfvars terraform.

Scaling and resiliency are important design considerations when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your environment can handle the load and remain available, you should design your landing zone to be highly available and scalable. This can be achieved by using multiple Availability Zones and by using auto-scaling groups to automatically add or remove resources as needed. Additionally, using services like Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) can help to increase the scalability and availability of your workloads.
Security and compliance are also crucial design considerations when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your environment is secure and compliant, you should design your landing zone to meet your organization’s security and compliance requirements. This can be achieved by using services like AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, AWS Config, and AWS CloudTrail to set up guardrails and track changes made to your environment. Additionally, you should design your network to be segmented and use services like VPC, Direct Connect, and Elasticsearch to improve the security and compliance of your landing zone.
Multi-account management is another important design consideration when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your environment is manageable and cost-effective, you should design your landing zone to use multiple accounts. This can be achieved by using services like AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower to set up a multi-account environment. Additionally, you should use services like AWS Config, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS CloudWatch to track and monitor your environment.
Network segmentation is another important design consideration when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your environment is secure and compliant, you should design your network to be segmented, this can be achieved by using services like Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and Direct Connect. By segmenting your network, you can better control access to your resources and improve security by isolating them from other parts of your network. Additionally, you can create different VPCs for different types of workloads or teams, this way you can apply different security and compliance requirements to each VPC.
Automation and orchestration are also important design considerations when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your environment is manageable and cost-effective, you should design your landing zone to be automated and orchestrated. This can be achieved by using services like AWS CloudFormation, AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, AWS Step Functions and AWS AppConfig. These services can help you automate the provisioning, management, and scaling of resources in your landing zone, this way you can reduce the amount of manual work and increase the speed and reliability of your landing zone.
Data governance is another important design consideration when setting up an AWS Landing Zone. To ensure that your data is secure and compliant, you should design your landing zone to include data governance. This can be achieved by using services like Amazon S3, Amazon EMR, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Glue, and AWS Lake Formation to store, process and govern your data. Additionally, you can use these services to implement data archiving, retention and compliance policies, this way you can ensure that your data is properly managed, secure and compliant.

In conclusion, there are several design considerations to keep in mind when setting up and managing an AWS Landing Zone. These design considerations can help to ensure that your environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective. By considering and utilizing these design considerations, along with best practices and design secrets for mastering the AWS Landing Zone architecture, you can ensure that your organization’s AWS environment is optimized, scalable, and well-governed.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, AWS Landing Zone is a powerful tool for managing and optimizing your AWS environment. By understanding the core components of the AWS Landing Zone architecture and incorporating best practices and design secrets, you can ensure that your environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective. Additionally, by considering additional components, such as AWS Config, CloudFormation, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, IAM, VPC, Direct Connect, Elasticsearch and other services, you can further optimize and secure your environment. Furthermore, by considering design considerations, such as scaling and resiliency, security and compliance, multi-account management, network segmentation, automation and orchestration and data governance, you can ensure that your environment is well-governed and optimized. Remember that the landing zone is a foundation for your organization’s AWS journey and it’s a critical aspect to consider in order to achieve a successful implementation and management of your environment.

FAQs

Q: What is AWS Landing Zone?

A: AWS Landing Zone is a service that makes it easy to set up a secure, multi-account AWS environment. It enables central management of multiple accounts, automated setup of a landing zone, and governance.

Q: What are the core components of AWS Landing Zone architecture?

A: The core components of AWS Landing Zone architecture are AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, AWS Service Catalog, and AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM).

Q: What are some additional components to consider when using AWS Landing Zone?

A: Some additional components to consider when using AWS Landing Zone are AWS Config, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CloudTrail, AWS CloudWatch, AWS IAM, AWS VPC, AWS Direct Connect, and AWS Elasticsearch.

Q: What are some design considerations for AWS Landing Zone architecture?

A: Some design considerations for AWS Landing Zone architecture are scaling and resiliency, high availability, security and compliance, multi-account management, network segmentation, monitoring and logging, identity and access management, cost optimization, multi-region deployments, disaster recovery and business continuity, hybrid cloud, infrastructure as code, automation and orchestration, and integration with third-party tools.

Q: How can I master the AWS Landing Zone architecture?

A: To master the AWS Landing Zone architecture, it is essential to have a deep understanding of its core components and design considerations. This includes understanding best practices and design secrets for optimizing the service for efficiency and security.

Q: Can AWS Landing Zone be used for multi-cloud deployments?

A: AWS Landing Zone is primarily designed for deploying and managing resources within the AWS environment, but it can be integrated with other cloud services using third-party tools.

Q: Is there any cost associated with using AWS Landing Zone?

A: AWS Landing Zone is a pay-as-you-go service, and you pay for the underlying services used in the landing zone, such as AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, and AWS Service Catalog.

Q: What are the best practices for designing an AWS Landing Zone?

A: When it comes to designing an AWS Landing Zone, there are several best practices to keep in mind to ensure that your environment is secure, compliant, and cost-effective. It is recommended to design your landing zone to be highly available and scalable, to meet your organization’s security and compliance requirements, to use multiple accounts, to segment your network, to automate and orchestrate resources and to implement data governance. It is also important to monitor and troubleshoot your environment to ensure it’s running smoothly.

Q: How can I get started with building your

Here is the best way to get started with Brainboard. Register here to create your account or you can sign up with your Google or Microsoft login.

Q: Do Brainboard have a template specifically for AWS Landing Zone?

Surely. This is the link to the AWS Landing Zone cloud architecture template, available for anybody starting their way into IaC best practices.