A secure and scalable multi-account AWS foundation designed around centralized governance, identity, networking, logging and cloud-security controls.
This reference architecture is independently created to demonstrate AWS cloud architecture and security concepts. It contains no client architecture, employer information, proprietary code, account details or confidential data.
As organizations increase their use of AWS, operating everything inside a small number of accounts can create challenges around security boundaries, access control, governance, networking, logging and cost ownership.
A well-designed landing zone establishes the cloud foundation before application teams begin deploying workloads at scale.
An AWS Landing Zone provides a structured foundation for operating multiple AWS accounts with consistent security, governance and operational controls.
Instead of allowing teams to create isolated cloud environments independently, the landing zone establishes common standards for account organization, identity, security, networking and logging.
AWS Organizations, organizational units and account structure.
Centralized workforce access and permission management.
Controlled connectivity between workloads and shared services.
Centralized visibility, logging, detection and governance.
The following architecture represents a fictional enterprise AWS environment designed with separation between platform, security and application workloads.
AWS ORGANIZATION
│
Management Account
│
┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
Security OU Infrastructure OU Workloads OU
│ │ │
┌────┴────┐ ┌───┴────┐ ┌────┴────┐
│ │ │ │ │ │
Log Archive Security Network Shared Prod Non-Prod
Account Account Account Services Accounts Accounts
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
CloudTrail GuardDuty Transit DNS VPCs VPCs
Config Security Gateway Shared Apps Dev/Test
Logs Hub Services
│ │
└──────┬────┘
▼
Central Security Visibility
Organization-wide Guardrails
─────────────────────────────
SCPs • Config • IAM
Service Control Policies can establish permission boundaries across organizational units and AWS accounts while individual IAM policies continue to control permissions inside each account.
Restrict unauthorized AWS Regions, prevent disabling security services, protect centralized logging resources and limit sensitive administrative operations.
Security telemetry should be centrally visible while sensitive audit data is stored separately from application workloads. This helps reduce the risk of workload administrators modifying or deleting critical security logs.
This architecture can be extended with Terraform-based account provisioning, security controls, networking, centralized logging and automated cloud governance.