Connect a cloud
A connected cloud is the parent Alien creates subaccounts in: your AWS organization, a Google Cloud organization or folder, or an Azure subscription. You connect it once, from Subaccounts → Connect a cloud in the dashboard, and Alien checks its access every few minutes after that.
Connecting needs an administrator of that cloud. Alien gets only the access it needs to create, set up, and close its own subaccounts.
Subaccounts are member accounts in your AWS Organizations organization.
- In Connect a cloud, pick AWS, then a Name, Manager, and Default region.
- Choose Open AWS and launch the CloudFormation stack in your management account. Acknowledge that it creates named IAM resources.
- Paste the stack's RoleArn output into Role ARN and choose Verify access.
- Set Email for new subaccounts. Every AWS account needs its own email, so Alien adds
+<name>-<random>to the address you give. - Under Advanced, Folder for new subaccounts is the organizational unit (OU) new accounts go into. Create one in AWS Organizations first if you have none.
The role can create accounts only with this connection's tag. It can close, move, and access only accounts that carry that tag, inside its OU.
Deleting the stack revokes access. Subaccounts stay open.
Status
The connected cloud's page shows its status and how many subaccounts it can still hold:
- Verifying access: Alien is checking the role, installer, or identity.
- Connected: ready for new subaccounts.
- Needs attention: access was removed or changed. The page says what to fix.
Each subaccount shows its own progress, such as Setting up, Waiting for quota, and Deploying, and lists its deployments.
Next
- Subaccounts: deploy into a new or existing subaccount.
Overview
Give each customer a single-tenant deployment in its own AWS account, Google Cloud project, or Azure resource group, created and deployed by Alien in your cloud.
Warm pools
Keep subaccounts ready, with their quotas already requested, so a new customer's deployment starts at once instead of waiting on the cloud provider.