Implement groups and roles

Implementing groups and roles is crucial for enforcing governance policies within your cloud environment. This approach enables organizations to maintain control over resources, ensuring that costs are managed while achieving business objectives efficiently. It encourages accountability and oversight, preventing unapproved resource expenditures.

Best Practices

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Environment Segregation

Questions to ask your team

• What processes are in place to ensure that resource creation aligns with cost management policies?
• How are permissions for creating, modifying, and deleting resources assigned and reviewed?
• Do you have separate roles for development, testing, and production environments to minimize unnecessary costs?
• How often do you audit group and role configurations to ensure compliance with your cost optimization policies?
• What tools or mechanisms do you use to monitor and optimize resource usage according to the roles defined?

Who should be doing this?

Cloud Administrator

• Define and implement IAM groups and roles to enforce cost-control policies.
• Monitor resource usage and compliance with established policies.
• Manage permissions associated with various environments (development, test, production).

Cost Governance Officer

• Establish cost governance policies across teams.
• Conduct regular audits of resource usage to ensure adherence to cost optimization strategies.
• Provide training on resource management practices and cost-saving measures.

Development Team Lead

• Ensure that development teams adhere to defined roles and permissions when creating and managing resources.
• Coordinate with administrators to request needed resources while staying within budget constraints.
• Review and optimize resource utilization on an ongoing basis.

Finance Analyst

• Analyze cost reports and usage patterns to identify areas for cost savings.
• Assist in establishing budgets aligned with resource utilization policies.
• Collaborate with other roles to align financial objectives with operational capabilities.

Security Officer

• Review IAM policies to ensure they do not introduce security vulnerabilities while optimizing costs.
• Engage in audits and compliance checks related to resource access and usage.
• Promote awareness of secure resource management practices across teams.

What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?

• Cost Governance Policy Template: A template outlining governance policies for cost management, including guidelines for resource allocation, approval workflows, and roles and responsibilities.
• IAM Role Management Report: A report detailing the implementation of IAM roles aligned with cost management policies, including assigned permissions for development, testing, and production groups.
• Cost Optimization Dashboard: A dashboard that visualizes resource usage and budget adherence, allowing teams to monitor costs in real-time and ensure compliance with governance policies.
• Resource Management Checklist: A checklist to verify compliance with governance policies regarding resource creation, modification, and decommissioning, ensuring that roles are applied correctly.
• Governance Strategy Guide: A guide outlining strategies for implementing cost governance through defined groups and roles, with best practices for maintaining oversight while promoting innovation.

Cloud Services

AWS

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): IAM allows you to create users, groups, and policies to control access to AWS services. This is essential for enforcing governance and ensuring that only authorized users can create or modify resources.
• AWS Organizations: AWS Organizations helps you centrally manage and govern multiple AWS accounts, enabling you to set service control policies to limit what can be done across accounts and ensure cost governance.
• AWS Budgets: AWS Budgets allows you to set cost and usage budgets that alert you if you exceed your thresholds, ensuring you stay aware of spending and can govern usage effectively.

Azure

• Azure Active Directory (AAD): Azure AD provides identity management capabilities that allow you to create roles and control access to Azure resources, ensuring that only authorized users can provision or modify resources.
• Azure Policy: Azure Policy helps you enforce organizational standards and assess compliance at scale, ensuring governance over which resources can be created or modified.
• Azure Cost Management: Azure Cost Management helps you track and optimize your Azure spending and provides insights to help govern costs effectively.

Google Cloud Platform

• Identity and Access Management (IAM): IAM allows you to manage access control by defining who can take what action on specific resources, critical for governance and cost control in GCP.
• Resource Manager: Resource Manager allows you to programmatically manage your GCP resources and set policies to enforce governance on how resources are deployed and managed across the organization.
• Google Cloud Billing: Google Cloud Billing provides insights into your resource usage and costs, allowing you to set budgets and alerts for better cost governance.

Question: How do you govern usage?
Pillar: Cost Optimization (Code: COST)