Overview

AWS Organizations allows you to create and manage multiple AWS accounts from a central place. Instead of managing each AWS account separately, you can apply policies and controls across all your accounts at once, making it easier to maintain security and compliance.

One of its key features is consolidated billing. Rather than dealing with separate bills for each AWS account, Organizations combines all charges into a single bill and often provides volume discounts across accounts. This makes it easier to track and manage costs across your entire organization.

The service lets you group accounts into organizational units (OUs) based on your needs - for example, by department, environment (development/production), or project. You can then apply different policies to each group to control what services and features they can use.

Organizations also provides service control policies (SCPs) that let you set guardrails on what actions can be performed in member accounts. For instance, you can prevent certain accounts from using specific AWS services or ensure all resources are created in approved regions.

Example uses

Multi-Account Management: Create and manage separate accounts for different departments or projects while maintaining central control.
Cost Management: Consolidate billing across accounts and share volume pricing discounts.
Security Enforcement: Apply consistent security policies across all accounts in your organization.
Resource Access Control: Control which AWS services and features are available in different accounts.

Integration with other AWS services

AWS Organizations works seamlessly with many AWS services:

AWS Control Tower: Automate account setup and governance
AWS IAM: Manage access permissions across accounts
AWS Config: Apply compliance rules across all accounts
Amazon CloudWatch: Monitor activity across your organization

Think of AWS Organizations as your company's AWS management system, providing central control over multiple AWS accounts while making it easier to maintain security, track costs, and ensure compliance across your entire organization.