Which action would impact the operations team the LEAST?
For each project and environment, create a new AWS account and link them to the master payer for unified management and billing
Use AWS Organizations to create a new organization for each project, then for each environment use a separate linked AWS account
Implement cost allocation tagging in the Billing and Cost Management console to implement tags to identify resources by project and environment
Add the project and environment information to the instance metadata so that the values can be queried and rolled up into reports
Explanations:
Creating separate AWS accounts for each project and environment increases complexity and administrative overhead. It also leads to fragmented billing, which may make it harder to generate comprehensive cost reports across multiple accounts.
While using AWS Organizations for separate accounts per project/environment may help isolate costs, it introduces additional complexity in managing multiple linked AWS accounts and may not be the most efficient approach for reporting purposes.
Implementing cost allocation tagging allows for resource grouping by tags like project and environment, and integrates seamlessly with the Billing and Cost Management console, making it a simple and efficient solution with minimal impact on operations.
Adding project and environment information to the instance metadata requires manual intervention and querying, which could be error-prone and does not directly integrate with billing or reporting tools in AWS. This approach adds unnecessary complexity for cost tracking.
I systematize that the answer is:
Implement cost allocation tagging in the Billing and Cost Management console to implement tags to identify resources by project and environment