The Jeff’s Note (Contextual Hook) #
Jeff’s Note #
Unlike generic exam dumps, ADH analyzes this scenario through the lens of a Real-World Site Reliability Engineer (SRE).
For SOA-C02 candidates, the confusion often lies in how to automate multi-account setups with governance while minimizing manual overhead. In production, this is about knowing exactly which AWS service provides built-in account provisioning and guardrails versus complex scripting and automation overhead. Let’s drill down.
The Certification Drill (Simulated Question) #
Scenario #
DataBricks Corp is scaling its infrastructure footprint on AWS and needs to create individual AWS accounts for each project team to isolate both billing and compliance controls. The SysOps team wants the process of creating accounts to be repeatable, fast, and to enforce baseline security and monitoring policies right at account creation. This approach will reduce manual configuration errors and ensure that all new accounts conform to organizational guardrails. The SRE must choose the best method to rapidly provision and bootstrap new AWS accounts with proper governance.
The Requirement: #
Provision isolated AWS accounts per team with automated baseline configuration and guardrails to ensure security and compliance at scale.
The Options #
- A) Automate account provisioning using AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy infrastructure and integrate the process with AWS Organizations.
- B) Develop bootstrapping scripts in AWS OpsWorks and run them with AWS CloudFormation templates for account and environment setup.
- C) Leverage AWS Config rules to provision AWS accounts and deploy resources using AWS Service Catalog portfolios.
- D) Use AWS Control Tower’s Account Factory to create standardized account templates and provision new accounts from those templates.
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Correct Answer #
D
Quick Insight: The SysOps Automation Imperative #
AWS Control Tower provides a fully managed service designed specifically for multi-account governance. Account Factory templates enable repeatable, compliant account creation within AWS Organizations, built-in guardrails enforce security and compliance, and it removes the need for complex custom scripting. This differentiates Control Tower from other services that focus on infrastructure provisioning but do not natively handle scalable account bootstrap with governance.
Content Locked: The Expert Analysis #
You’ve identified the answer. But do you know the implementation details that separate a Junior from a Senior?
The Expert’s Analysis #
Correct Answer #
Option D
The Winning Logic #
AWS Control Tower was purpose-built to simplify multi-account AWS setups under AWS Organizations by automating account provisioning with pre-configured guardrails (mandatory and strongly recommended), centralized logging, and security baselines—this eliminates the need to build custom orchestration pipelines across accounts. Account Factory in Control Tower enables rapid creation of accounts using templates that embed network, IAM, and security configurations, thus accelerating compliance at scale. This aligns perfectly with an SRE goal of reducing toil and achieving operational consistency.
- Option A, Elastic Beanstalk, focuses on application deployment and does not provide account-level provisioning or governance capabilities.
- Option B using OpsWorks combined with CloudFormation is possible but creates significant complexity and custom maintenance overhead compared to Control Tower’s managed solution.
- Option C misapplies AWS Config for account creation; Config is meant for compliance auditing, not provisioning accounts or managed portfolio deployments.
The Technical Blueprint #
# Example AWS Control Tower CLI commands (via AWS CLI v2 with Control Tower API preview):
# Request to provision a new account using Account Factory template parameters
aws controltower enroll-account \
--account-name "project-team-alpha" \
--email "[email protected]" \
--organizational-unit "Engineering-Projects" \
--managed-organizational-unit "OU_ID_from_ControlTower" \
--account-factory-parameters S3Bucket=config-bucket,S3Key=template.yaml
Note: Currently, AWS Control Tower automation primarily happens via the Management Console or custom automation on top of Control Tower APIs, but native CLI and SDK support is improving.
The Comparative Analysis #
| Option | Operational Overhead | Automation Level | Impact on Governance |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | High - Custom Beanstalk apps needed | Low - Not designed for account provisioning | Minimal - No built-in governance |
| B | High - Custom scripting and OpsWorks management | Moderate - Automation but costly to maintain | Partial - No automatic guardrails |
| C | High - Misuse of AWS Config | Low - Indirect for provisioning | Poor - Config cannot provision accounts |
| D | Low - Managed solution with minimal setup | High - Native Account Factory automation | High - Predefined guardrails and compliance |
Real-World Application (Practitioner Insight) #
Exam Rule #
“For the exam, always pick AWS Control Tower when you see ‘multi-account provisioning with governance’ and ‘scalable guardrails’.”
Real World #
“In real enterprise environments, we often integrate Control Tower with AWS Service Catalog and AWS Organizations for full lifecycle governance, security, and compliance automation. If Control Tower does not meet advanced custom requirements, we consider AWS Landing Zone (deprecated) or custom automation using AWS Organizations APIs, but only after careful cost-benefit analysis.”
(CTA) Stop Guessing, Start Mastering #
Disclaimer
This is a study note based on simulated scenarios for the SOA-C02 exam.