Best Practices for Using AWS Systems Manager

Fully Optimizing with Systems Manager

Management will need to continuously monitor and adapt AWS infrastructure to security and compliance requirements.  Data will be aggregated to a single console from a variety of other insight services and third-party tools.  Through automation, resource changes can be simplified whether they’re on-premises or in the cloud and issues can be diagnosed and remedied long before they impact end-users.  There are a variety of features and AWS best practice methods that should be considered in how they are applied to an environment.

Using Automation

When operating at a greater scale, basic tasks such as maintenance can start to eat up more time.  Using automation to simplify more common, simple tasks such as generating backups, patching individual instances, deploying applications across multiple instances, and traffic control will accelerate maintenance and ensure that such tasks are carried out consistently.  For example, the Patch Manager makes sure security intelligence updates are rolled out.  This provides extensive configuration controls on how updates are conducted and how to ensure instances are consistently kept updated per the users’ preferences.  All the same, while most operations can be automated, keep a close eye on the health and resource use of an environment to react to encroaching problems faster.

The Parameter Store and State Manager

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is a central repository for configuration data, ideally database connection strings, API keys, and other important information critical to the security of cloud infrastructure.  Along with managing configuration data securely, it also provides secure access from multiple instances.  This works well in conjunction with the State Manager. The state manager Continuously monitors and verifies that instances under the System Manager’s controls are configured correctly and adjusts settings if needed.  Everything from security settings to network settings and individual application settings are tracked in the instance configuration.

Fully Optimizing with Systems Manager

Management will need to continuously monitor and adapt AWS infrastructure to security and compliance requirements.  Data will be aggregated to a single console from a variety of other insight services and third-party tools.  Through automation, resource changes can be simplified whether they’re on-premises or in the cloud and issues can be diagnosed and remedied long before they impact end-users.  There are a variety of features and AWS best practice methods that should be considered in how they are applied to an environment.

Using Automation

When operating at a greater scale, basic tasks such as maintenance can start to eat up more time.  Using automation to simplify more common, simple tasks such as generating backups, patching individual instances, deploying applications across multiple instances, and traffic control will accelerate maintenance and ensure that such tasks are carried out consistently.  For example, the Patch Manager makes sure security intelligence updates are rolled out.  This provides extensive configuration controls on how updates are conducted and how to ensure instances are consistently kept updated per the users’ preferences.  All the same, while most operations can be automated, keep a close eye on the health and resource use of an environment to react to encroaching problems faster.

The Parameter Store and State Manager

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is a central repository for configuration data, ideally database connection strings, API keys, and other important information critical to the security of cloud infrastructure.  Along with managing configuration data securely, it also provides secure access from multiple instances.  This works well in conjunction with the State Manager. The state manager Continuously monitors and verifies that instances under the System Manager’s controls are configured correctly and adjusts settings if needed.  Everything from security settings to network settings and individual application settings are tracked in the instance configuration.

The Principle of Least Privilege

Setting IAM (Identity Access Management) policies to follow the principle of least privilege means that each user role will only have access to the resources that are necessary to complete their tasks.  Should an account become compromised, the amount of damage the hijacked account can do will be significantly reduced and minimize the risk of unauthorized access to crucial resources.  Access logs will track suspicious activity to better discover which accounts in an AWS organization have been compromised.

Stick to a Good Naming Convention

Using a standardized method of naming resources will make those resources much easier to find and identify.  The AWS Systems Manager does come with a tagging system to help categorize everything.  This also works with properly allocating costs and properly tracking what services are using environmental resources for accounting and cost optimization purposes.  Items with similar tags can then be placed into Resource Groups.  These are groups of similar resource types so sourcing the right resources is much easier.

Managed Instances

Managed Instances are instances specifically located outside of an environment’s VPC running either in another environment or in a customer’s data center.  Typically, this is more for front-end requirements where customers will need to have access to certain resources and can help in simplifying how instances are managed across environments.

The Principle of Least Privilege

Setting IAM (Identity Access Management) policies to follow the principle of least privilege means that each user role will only have access to the resources that are necessary to complete their tasks.  Should an account become compromised, the amount of damage the hijacked account can do will be significantly reduced and minimize the risk of unauthorized access to crucial resources.  Access logs will track suspicious activity to better discover which accounts in an AWS organization have been compromised.

Stick to a Good Naming Convention

Using a standardized method of naming resources will make those resources much easier to find and identify.  The AWS Systems Manager does come with a tagging system to help categorize everything.  This also works with properly allocating costs and properly tracking what services are using environmental resources for accounting and cost optimization purposes.  Items with similar tags can then be placed into Resource Groups.  These are groups of similar resource types so sourcing the right resources is much easier.

Managed Instances

Managed Instances are instances specifically located outside of an environment’s VPC running either in another environment or in a customer’s data center.  Typically, this is more for front-end requirements where customers will need to have access to certain resources and can help in simplifying how instances are managed across environments.

Inventory Management and Resource Use

The metadata on all active instances and applications is retained in the environment’s inventory.  Everything from resource use and access logs is kept here with extensive details for review.  These should be used extensively for evaluating environmental efficiency and identifying potential security issues that need to be remedied.

AWS Infrastructure and Maintaining Control

Systems Manager is a very comprehensive set of tools that grants significant oversight over an environment and the options for how to change the environment to be efficient, meet best practices, and mitigate risk as much as physically possible.  Whether for development teams building their first project on AWS or companies who are long-time users of the Amazon Cloud, it’s an essential service that should be considered in the maintenance process.   For more on AWS best practices, check out our guide on objectives and services that can help provide a sustainable AWS environment.

Inventory Management and Resource Use

The metadata on all active instances and applications is retained in the environment’s inventory.  Everything from resource use and access logs is kept here with extensive details for review.  These should be used extensively for evaluating environmental efficiency and identifying potential security issues that need to be remedied.

AWS Infrastructure and Maintaining Control

Systems Manager is a very comprehensive set of tools that grants significant oversight over an environment and the options for how to change the environment to be efficient, meet best practices, and mitigate risk as much as physically possible.  Whether for development teams building their first project on AWS or companies who are long-time users of the Amazon Cloud, it’s an essential service that should be considered in the maintenance process.   For more on AWS best practices, check out our guide on objectives and services that can help provide a sustainable AWS environment.