AWS Public Sector Blog
Author: Dmitry Kagansky
Dmitry is a senior solutions architect working with state and local governments to help them along their cloud journeys. Prior to AWS, he held a number of technical and management roles, including federal CTO for Quest Software and EVP of development for Star2Star Communications. When not working with customers, Dmitry enjoys traveling and seeing live music throughout the world.
Access AWS GovCloud (US) through the CLI with Azure AD credentials
Providing access through Azure AD to AWS GovCloud (US) reduces the number of credentials administrators need to manage and use for access to AWS GovCloud (US) and can also increase security to the account by using the same Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) mechanism used with Azure AD. This access also allows the use of scripts and programs to help manage resources in the AWS accounts. This post is a walkthrough of using an open-source utility called saml2aws to provide programmatic access to AWS for Azure AD users.
Using AWS SSO with Microsoft Azure AD to federate to AWS GovCloud (US)
Many government customers use AWS GovCloud (US) because it provides an environment for sensitive data and regulated workloads by addressing a number of U.S. government security and compliance requirements. In many cases, customers have a number of AWS GovCloud (US) accounts and managing authentication and authorization can require a lot of work. These customers may also use Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for identity management, single sign-on (SSO), and multi-factor authentication (MFA). This post builds on features and functionality announced earlier by demonstrating the necessary steps to configure Azure AD, AWS SSO, and the AWS GovCloud (US)-specific identity provider centrally for ease of management.