Guides · Infrastructure
Landing zones on AWS and Azure, explained
A landing zone is the governed foundation of your cloud: the accounts, network, identity, security and logging every workload runs on. Here’s what goes in one, what AWS and Microsoft give you, and how to have one running in weeks.
What is a landing zone?
A landing zone is your cloud environment, set up and governed before the first workload lands. Every application you run afterwards inherits its controls instead of reinventing them.
AWS calls it a well-architected, multi-account environment based on security and compliance best practices. Microsoft calls an Azure landing zone an architecture for governing, securing and scaling many subscriptions. The idea is the same: decide the foundations once, in code, and every team builds on them.
What goes in a landing zone
Accounts and governance
Separate AWS accounts or Azure subscriptions for production, development and shared services, grouped so policies apply automatically. A mistake in development can’t reach production.
Identity and access
One sign-in for every account, through the identity provider you already use, such as Microsoft Entra ID, Google or Okta. Roles grant each person only what their job needs.
Networking
A network designed once: how environments connect to each other, to the internet and to your offices. It’s usually hub-and-spoke, with shared services in a central hub and each workload in its own spoke.
Security and threat detection
Threat detection, configuration checks and encryption switched on everywhere by default, with every finding collected in one place.
Logging and audit
Every action recorded in a central log archive that workload teams can’t edit or delete, ready when auditors or acquirers ask.
Backup and recovery
Backup policies applied by default, matched to how much data each system can afford to lose.
Cost controls
Budgets, alerts and tags on every account, so each line of the bill traces back to a team or a product.
Everything in code
The whole foundation written as infrastructure as code, such as Terraform. Code describes your cloud, so every change is reviewed like software and applied the same way every time.
What AWS and Microsoft give you
On AWS
AWS Control Tower sets up and governs a multi-account environment, with AWS Organizations for the accounts, IAM Identity Center for sign-in and built-in controls. Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS is AWS’s open-source add-on for highly regulated workloads and complex compliance requirements.
On Azure
Microsoft splits an Azure landing zone in two: a platform landing zone for shared governance, security and networking, and workload landing zones for applications. Management groups and Azure Policy apply the rules. Microsoft’s accelerator deploys it with Azure Verified Modules, in Terraform or Bicep.
The services are the easy part. The decisions are the work.
AWS says Control Tower can set up a landing zone in less than an hour. It can’t make the decisions that matter: how accounts are grouped, how networks connect, who can do what, and which controls block rather than alert.
Get those wrong and you find out later, when changing them means moving live workloads. That’s why a landing zone takes 6–12 months to build properly in-house.
Signs you need a landing zone now
If any of these is true, your cloud is ready for a proper foundation:
- Production and development share an account or a subscription.
- People keep separate logins in each account, or share access keys.
- Nobody can say what’s running, who launched it or what it costs.
- Compliance requirements are coming: HIPAA, SOC 2 or a customer’s security review.
- A fundraise, an acquisition or due diligence is on the horizon.
- A second team, or a second cloud, is about to start building.
Built in, not bolted on later
Weeks
to deploy LaunchPad, against 6–12 months to build it properly yourself
About 10x
what compliance costs to retrofit later, compared with building it in
Build it yourself, or start with LaunchPad
LaunchPad is a production-ready landing zone on AWS or Microsoft Azure, deployed in weeks by FAANG-level engineers. On AWS, it assembles Control Tower with enterprise networking, identity, security and threat detection, backup and recovery, and cost visibility. On Azure, it follows Microsoft’s Azure landing zones, and everything is Terraform in your repository, yours to own.
Related services
LaunchPad
A secure, compliant landing zone on AWS or Microsoft Azure, deployed in weeks.
Cloud Architecture
Cloud environments planned, built and migrated for performance, cost and scale.
Cloud Support
Your cloud run day to day by the engineers who know it.
Questions about landing zones
What is a landing zone in AWS?
A well-architected, multi-account AWS environment: accounts grouped in AWS Organizations, one sign-in through IAM Identity Center, and controls, logging and backup applied to every account. AWS Control Tower sets up its core.
What is an Azure landing zone?
Microsoft’s recommended architecture for an Azure environment: a platform landing zone for shared governance, security and networking, and workload landing zones for your applications. Management groups and Azure Policy apply the rules to every subscription.
Is AWS Control Tower a landing zone?
Control Tower is AWS’s service for setting up and governing one: it creates the core accounts, sign-in and controls. A complete landing zone also needs a network design, security tooling, backup, cost controls and the decisions behind them. LaunchPad assembles all of it, with Control Tower as one of the building blocks.
Can we add a landing zone to a cloud we already run?
Yes. Companies whose cloud grew organically get a clean, governed baseline to move onto, without rebuilding from scratch. We can move your workloads across for you, in planned stages.
Should a landing zone be built in Terraform?
In infrastructure as code, yes, so every change is reviewed and the foundation can be rebuilt the same way. Terraform works on AWS and Azure alike, and it’s what LaunchPad delivers, in your own repository.
Is a landing zone worth it for a small company?
Yes, and it’s cheapest at the start: retrofitting compliance later costs about 10 times as much as building it in. A landing zone grows with you from first product to IPO.
Find out what your landing zone needs.
A 15-minute conversation, and a straight answer on whether LaunchPad fits your situation. No commitment. No sales pressure. Just answers.