AWS Environment Assessment Checklist​

A thorough AWS Environment Assessment Checklist can be instrumental in managing and optimizing your AWS infrastructure. By regularly evaluating security, performance, cost efficiency, and compliance, you ensure that your AWS environment aligns with your organization’s needs and best practices. This checklist provides a structured approach to assessing critical aspects of your AWS environment, helping you identify potential issues, manage resources effectively, and maintain compliance.

This checklist is ideal for AWS administrators, IT professionals, and DevOps teams looking to ensure a robust and secure AWS setup.

Why Perform an AWS Environment Assessment?

AWS offers extensive flexibility, but a well-managed AWS environment requires regular evaluation to maintain security, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. An AWS Environment Assessment helps prevent security risks, optimizes resources, and controls expenses.

Key Benefits of an AWS Environment Assessment

• Enhanced Security: Regular checks ensure your environment is secure against potential threats.

• Cost Optimization: Identify unused or underutilized resources to reduce costs.

• Performance Improvement: Ensure high availability, scalability, and performance by monitoring resource use.

• Compliance and Governance: Maintain compliance with industry standards and best practices.

AWS Environment Assessment Checklist

Each section below highlights essential areas to evaluate in your AWS environment, from security and compliance to performance and cost management.

Security Assessment

1. Access and Identity Management

• Confirm IAM policies follow the principle of least privilege.

• Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for privileged accounts.

• Regularly review and rotate access keys.

• Identify and remove inactive IAM users and roles.

2. Network Security

• Review security group and NACL rules for unnecessary open ports.

• Enable VPC Flow Logs to monitor network traffic.

• Use AWS WAF to protect web applications.

• Enable CloudTrail to track API activity and detect suspicious behavior.

3. Data Protection

• Ensure all data at rest is encrypted (e.g., S3 buckets, EBS volumes).

• Enforce encryption in transit using SSL/TLS.

• Regularly audit and enforce S3 bucket permissions.

Compliance and Governance

1. Resource Tagging and Management

• Implement a tagging strategy for better resource management.

• Regularly audit resource tags for accuracy.

2. Compliance Checks

• Use AWS Config to monitor compliance with organization policies.

• Check compliance with regulatory standards (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR).

• Set up AWS Organizations for multi-account governance.

3. Logging and Monitoring

• Enable and configure CloudWatch for resource monitoring.

• Use AWS CloudTrail to log all account activity.

• Set up alarms and notifications for critical metrics.

Performance Optimization

1. Compute Resources

• Right-size EC2 instances based on usage.

• Utilize Auto Scaling to handle dynamic workloads.

• Monitor Lambda functions for performance and memory utilization.

2. Storage Optimization

• Evaluate and remove unused EBS volumes.

• Check S3 storage classes and lifecycle policies.

• Regularly review RDS and DynamoDB configurations for optimal performance.

3. Database Performance

• Optimize RDS instance types and storage options.

• Enable RDS Performance Insights for analysis.

• Regularly monitor read/write IOPS and adjust settings accordingly.

Cost Management

1. Cost Analysis

• Review monthly AWS billing and cost reports.

• Identify idle or underused resources.

• Use AWS Cost Explorer to analyze spending trends.

2. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans

• Evaluate EC2 Reserved Instances or Savings Plans for discounts.

• Consider Savings Plans for Lambda and Fargate if applicable.

3. Automated Cost-Saving Measures

• Enable rightsizing recommendations for EC2 and RDS.

• Implement scheduled start/stop for non-production instances.