ITS offers self-service cloud accounts via Amazon Web Services (AWS) for users who are interested in managing their own cloud resources without direct involvement from our technicians. This option allows you to have more autonomy over your data and resources, while still benefitting from features like adherence to institutional data management policies, cost control, and security protocols. ITS does not manage your account, but does have limited access as needed to monitor your resource usage, and ensure your account is compliant with all of our policies.
Self-service accounts empower you to experiment and innovate rapidly. You can quickly spin up and tear down resources, test new technologies or applications, and iterate on solutions without relying on external teams or undergoing lengthy approval processes.
Direct support from Amazon is also included in self-managed accounts.
What's Included
- Complete account management: Independently manage your AWS account through a self-service portal, including billing and payment information, access controls, and account preferences.
- Resource provisioning: Provision and manage your own cloud resources, such as virtual servers (EC2 instances), databases (RDS), and storage (S3).
- Cost & budget control: Self-service accounts include monitoring to control costs like budget alerts to track resource usage and stay within allocated budgets.
- Security & access control: Have complete control over who has access to your resources by configuring your permissions, security groups, and encryption. Note that ITS does monitor for compliance with centralized security policies.
- Collaboration & sharing: Share resources and collaborate with other team members within the organization only.
Cost and Fees
Current pricing for this service is available on our Rates page under the “Cloud Services.""
Service Requirements
Accounts cannot host moderate-risk or high-risk data. If that is a requirement, you will need to request a fully-managed account.
Support cases must be opened with Amazon.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I open a self-service AWS account?
You can submit a request for an account using our Research Computing/Storage Request form on the myHelpdesk site.
What can I use an AWS self-service account for?
AWS accounts can be useful for several types of scenarios, including, but not limited to: developing and testing environments, running data for research or experimentation, creating hands-on training environments, innovating and prototyping proof-of-concepts, and for managing Agile and DevOps practices.
Are there any limitations on using an institutional AWS account?
Self-service cloud accounts are not intended for sensitive or confidential data. There are guidelines and access controls that are not in place to prevent unauthorized access or accidental exposure of sensitive information.
Accounts are also not suitable for hosting critical production systems or applications without proper governance and oversight. Mission-critical applications and systems may require specialized infrastructure, high availability, and more stringent operational processes that necessitate centralized management and monitoring.
For more information, please review our Cloud and AWS security standards.