What is AWS Config ?

Through AWS Config, users can procure a total viewpoint on their AWS asset setups, assess consistency with hierarchical strategies and industry rules, and distinguish unapproved changes. This article goes into detail about the intricacies of AWS Config, looking at its features, benefits, and practical applications for maintaining strong cloud infrastructures. Organizations can strengthen their security posture, improve functional effectiveness, and guarantee compliance with administrative requirements by utilizing the capabilities of AWS Config.

We’ll take a look at the main features and functions of AWS Config, how it works, and how it helps businesses stay compliant, increase security, and adhere to operational best practices. We’ll make sense of the meaning of AWS Config through true models, give a bit-by-bit manual for its utilization, and characterize key terms. In addition, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities and benefits of AWS Config, we will frequently respond to questions. Through this investigation, readers will procure significant pieces of information about using AWS Config as the foundation of their AWS executive system.

Primary Terminologies

• AWS Config: The Amazon Web Services (AWS) service AWS Config makes it possible to continuously monitor and record configurations for AWS resources within an AWS account. It catches nitty gritty metadata and setup depictions, allowing users to follow changes after some time.
• Configuration Items: Arrangement things are individual records caught by AWS Config for each AWS asset inside the designed extension. They contain metadata and arrangement subtleties, including resource credits, connections, and setup history.
• Recorder for Config: A setup recorder is an element of AWS Config that empowers the consistent recording of design changes to AWS assets. Users should empower a setup recorder to begin catching design previews.
• Configuration Rules: Setup rules are predefined or custom guidelines that assess whether asset arrangements agree with explicit approaches, administrative prerequisites, or security best practices. Users can set rules to enforce compliance and get alerts when resources don’t follow them.

What is AWS Config?

AWS Config is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that empowers you to evaluate, review, and assess the configurations of your AWS resources. It persistently monitors and records the configuration changes that happen inside your AWS environment, giving insights into resource configuration history and encouraging compliance, security, and operational best practices.

AWS Config makes a difference in keeping control and perceivability over your AWS infrastructure by following changes to resource configurations over time. It captures points of interest such as configurations changes, connections between resources, and the in general state of your environment.

By leveraging AWS Config organizations can ensure that their AWS resources comply with inside policies, industry regulations, and security benchmarks. It moreover makes a difference identify unauthorized changes, evaluate compliance with wanted setups, and remediate non-compliant resources. AWS Config improves perceivability, control, and administration of your AWS environment.

AWS Config Concepts

• Configuration Items: These are the resources that AWS Config monitors. They incorporate metadata, for example, asset type, ID, design, and connections.
• Config Rules: Rules that you characterize to implement wanted designs or consistence necessities. AWS Config considers these guidelines in contrast to setup changes and reports consistence status.
• Recorder for Config: A service that records designs of upheld assets in your AWS account.
• History of Configurations: a timeline of changes to your account’s resources’ configuration.
• Configuration Snapshot: A specific moment perspective on the configuration of resources in your account.
• Delivery Channel: Indicates where AWS Config sends configuration change notices, for example, Amazon S3 buckets or Amazon SNS topics.

How AWS Config Work?

The configurations of your AWS resources are continuously monitored and stored in a centralized repository by AWS Config. Here is a brief outline of how it works

• Recording of Configurations: The configurations of your account’s supported AWS resources are captured and recorded by AWS Config. This incorporates subtleties, for example, resource credits, connections, and configuration history.
• Tracking of Change: It tracks changes to resource designs over the long run, distinguishing when alterations happen, what was changed, and who rolled out the improvement. This gives a far reaching review trail of setup changes.
• Rule Evaluation: AWS Config allows you to define rules to implement wanted arrangements or consistence necessities. AWS Config provides status updates on compliance after these rules are compared to modifications to the configuration.
• Notifications and Alerts: AWS Config either integrates with AWS Lambda for custom response actions or sends notifications via Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) whenever a configuration change breaks a defined rule or sets off an alert condition.
• Centralized Management: AWS Config gives you a centralized look at your AWS environment, making it possible to look at trends in configuration, fix problems, and keep your resources in compliance.
• Automation: Through incorporation with AWS Lambda, you can automate responses to arrangement changes in view of predefined rules, you can use this to enforce policies, fix problems, or take action when something happens.

Step-By-Step Process to Setup AWS Config

Step 1: Login to AWS Console

• Now login to AWS Console by using your credentials or create new account

Step 2: Navigate to AWS Config

• In AWS dashboard search for AWS Config and click on it

Step 3: Set up AWS Config

AWS Config provides a detailed view of the resources associated with your AWS account, including how they are configured, how they are related to one another, and how the configurations and their relationships have changed over time

• Now click on Get Started

Recording method: In Recording strategy, Customize AWS Config to record configuration changes for all supported resource types, or for only the supported resource types that are relevant to you. Globally recorded resources (RDS global clusters and IAM users, groups, roles, and customer managed policies) may be recorded in more than this Region.

In this Recording strategy they shows a two options

• All resource types with customizable overrides
• Specific resource types

• In Default settings, there is an option Recording frequency
• Continuous recording: Record configuration changes continuously whenever a change occurs.
• Daily recording: Receive configuration data once every day only if a change has occurred.

Step 4: IAM role for AWS Config

Now choose IAM Role for AWS Config

• Use an existing AWS Config service-linked role
• Choose a role from your account

Step 5: Delivery method

Now choose delivery method as shown in the image below.

Amazon S3 bucket

• Create a bucket
• Choose a bucket from your account
• Choose a bucket from another account

Here i am choosing Create a bucket and Provide Name to Bucket

• Click on Next

• Review and Confirm

Step 6: Verify

• Now go to AWS S3 console and verify that S3 bucket created or not
• Here we see S3 bucket was created successfully

• In S3 Bucket we can check objects file present, regarding to AWS Logs

• Here we see Config files

• Now go to AWS Config Dashboard and check AWS Config usage metrics
• Here we see that AWS Config was successfully created

Benefits of AWS Config

• Continuous Monitoring: AWS Config ceaselessly monitors your AWS assets, giving ongoing perceivability into their arrangements.
• Tracking of Change: It tracks changes to resource setups over the long run, assisting you with understanding who rolled out the improvement, when it happened, and what was changed.
• Assurance of Compliance: By allowing you to define and enforce compliance rules, you can ensure that your AWS environment adheres to industry standards, best practices, and internal policies.
• Security Enhancement: By distinguishing unapproved setup changes and giving alarms, AWS Config improves the security of your AWS environment.
• Troubleshooting and Auditing: By providing a comprehensive history of resource configuration changes, it facilitates audits, investigations, and problem resolution and makes troubleshooting simpler
• Automation Support: Because AWS Config works with AWS Lambda you can automate responses to changes to the configuration based on predefined rules.

AWS Config Pricing

AWS Config pricing depends on two fundamental factors: the number of configuration things recorded and the quantity of dynamic Config rules.

• Configuration Items: AWS Config charges based of the quantity of configuration things recorded. Setup things address the resources in your AWS account that AWS Config monitors and tracks designs for, for example, EC2 instances, S3 buckets, IAM roles, and so on.
• Active Config Rules: AWS Config likewise charges in based of the quantity of dynamic Config rules you have conveyed. Config rules are utilized to define desired arrangements or consistence prerequisites for your AWS resources. The pricing is determined by the quantity of decides that are effectively assessing resources setups.

AWS Config vs CloudTrail

FEATURES	AWS CONFIG	CLOUD TRAIL
Focus	AWS Config mainly focus on configuration management and monitoring	AWS Cloud Trail focus on Logging and auditing
Functionality	It continuously monitors resources, track changes and provide automation through AWS Lambda	It records API calls made with AWS account, provides logs, API activity and troubleshooting
Use Cases	Configuration Management, Monitoring , Security and track changes	Auditung, Security analysis, monitoring, troubleshooting and resources tracking
Integration	Can we use AWS CloudTrail logs as a data source	Can be use AWS services to integrate with others services for analysis and automation purpose

Conclusion

AWS Config remains as a critical resource for associations exploring the complexities of cloud infrastructure management. By ceaselessly monitoring and configuration design changes across AWS resources, it offers a far reaching perspective on the environment’s state, supporting consistence, security, and functional proficiency, the ability of AWS Config to spot unauthorized changes and make sure they are in line with organizational policies and regulatory requirements improves security and reduces risks. In addition, the detailed configuration history it provides enables efficient resource optimization and troubleshooting, through AWS Config, associations gain proactive bits of knowledge into their cloud environment, cultivating administration and working with informed navigation. Businesses can support stringent standards, boost resilience, and get the most out of their AWS investments by using AWS Config, as cloud environments develop progressively, AWS Config fills in as a foundation for keeping up with control, compliance, and agility, driving practical development and development in the digital era.

AWS Config – FAQs

Can AWS Config keep track of changes to any AWS resource?

Yes, AWS Config can follow changes to an extensive variety of AWS resources including yet not restricted to EC2 instances, S3 buckets, IAM roles, RDS databases, and so on. It offers exhaustive inclusion across different AWS services.

Is there any cost for AWS Config?

Yes, AWS Config might cause costs in light of the quantity of design things recorded and the frequency of configuration changes followed. However, to get started with AWS Config, AWS provides a free tier with limited capabilities at no additional cost.

How does AWS Config aid in compliance management?

By continuously monitoring resource configurations and providing insights into compliance with organizational policies and regulatory requirements, AWS Config aids compliance management it makes it easier to remediate configurations that aren’t in compliance and finds them.

How frequently does AWS Config catch configuration changes?

AWS Config continuously records changes to configurations, providing insights into resource configurations in real time, users can set how often they want to take configuration snapshots and whether they want to be notified when something changes.

Can other AWS services be integrated with AWS Config?

Yes, AWS Config can be coordinated with other AWS administrations like AWS CloudTrail, AWS CloudWatch, and AWS Lambda. These combinations improve perceivability, automation, and remediation abilities inside AWS environments.