Innovative Solutions for Secure Multi-Account Network Communication in the AWS Cloud
Introduction:
In the ever-evolving world of cloud computing, organizations are constantly looking for innovative solutions to improve security, streamline operations, and maximize resource utilization. One of our customer’s most pressing challenges was to establish secure network communications between different AWS accounts within the AWS organization and to external interfaces.
Challenge:
The challenges our customer faced included the need for secure communication between different AWS accounts, isolation of test and development environments, centralized access to Internet resources via intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and robust protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Overcoming these challenges is critical to the integrity and security of an organization’s cloud infrastructure.
Solution and Architecture:
Working closely with our customer, we developed a comprehensive solution for a multi-account network architecture:
- Integration of a centralized network AWS account: This serves as the preferred point for all network communications.
- Implementation of AWS Transit Gateway: This is shared with the required AWS member accounts via AWS Organizations to enable secure communication.
- Automated Setup of AWS Member Accounts: This uses AWS Service Catalog and AWS CloudFormation to set up defined VPC environments within the member accounts and connect them to the Transit Gateway.
- Set up dedicated Internet access and firewall VPCs: Centralized control of Internet access was established by connecting to the Transit Gateway.
- Set up AWS network firewall: This was done in the Internet access VPC to provide additional protection against threats.
- AWS Firewall Manager integration: For centralized management of AWS Web Application Firewall rules and AWS Network Firewall rules.
Benefits:
External Access Point Consolidation
Reduce the number of remote access points to simplify management and improve security.
Improve Network Security
Improve overall network security by implementing dedicated security measures and centralized management.
Implement One-To-Many Communication at the Application Layer
Enable efficient and secure application-level communication between different AWS accounts.
