AWS new account checklist

• Enable 2FA (hardware or software).
• Change the payment currency in My Account, Payment Currency Preferences.

• Set up a billing alarm:

  In My Billing dashboard, choose Account/Billing Preferences and set options:

  • Receive PDF invoice by email
  • Receive free tier usage alerts (input email only if different)
  • Receive billing alerts

• Add a CloudWatch alarm:

  • Enter CloudWatch dashboard
  • Alarms, Add alarm,
  • Select metric, Billing, Total estimated charge,
  • USD, Select metric,
  • input $10, In alarm, Create a new topic,
  • input a suitable name such as Billing_Alert,
  • input email to notify probably the root email, Create topic,
  • input name such as Billing Alert and description, Create alert)

• AC recommends filling out Billing and Security contacts for even for personal accounts. I don’t see much point tbh.

• Enable access to billing information for an upcoming iamadmin user:

  By default only the root user has access to that.

  • My Account
  • IAM User and Role Access to Billing Information, Edit
  • …

• Add IAM Admin User [use instead of root when admin privileges are needed]

  • Helpful to name it iamadmin.
  • Set up 2FA for the admin user.
  • Add the access keys, if necessary.