🛠️ AWS Systems Manager Now Supports Custom Onboarding Configuration

AWS just made managing your EC2 fleet a whole lot easier.

With the latest update, AWS Systems Manager now supports custom configuration during on-boarding, allowing you to tailor how your EC2 instances connect to Systems Manager and how frequently they report metadata or update agents.

🚀 What’s New?

When enabling the new Systems Manager experience, you can now:

🔐 Enable or disable default EC2 permissions

🕒 Set your own inventory collection frequency

🔄 Control how often the SSM Agent updates

🔧 Use your own IAM policies instead of AWS defaults (via opt-out)

🧠 Why This Matters

Previously, on-boarding EC2 instances into Systems Manager meant:

• Manually attaching IAM roles
• Accepting AWS's default inventory schedules
• Custom scripting for agent updates

Now, it's all streamlined. You get centralized configuration across accounts and regions with less manual work.

💡 Real-World Example

Let's say you're managing 100+ EC2 instances across multiple AWS accounts. With this new on-boarding customization:

✅ Use Default Host Management Configuration (DHMC) so AWS handles permissions for you
🕓 Set inventory collection to every 6 hours
🔁 Update the SSM Agent every 3 days
🔒 Or opt out of AWS defaults and use your own Infrastructure as Code (IaC) setup

It’s flexibility and automation — your way.

📦 Integration with IaC Tools

You can also configure these settings using tools like:

• Terraform
• CloudFormation
• AWS CDK

This makes it easier to align Systems Manager with your CI/CD pipelines and security posture.

🔚 Final Thoughts

This update simplifies Systems Manager on-boarding and gives you fine-grained control without giving up automation. Whether you're managing a few instances or scaling across environments, this feature helps you reduce overhead and enforce standards.

✍️ Have you tried the new Systems Manager on-boarding? Let’s discuss in the comments!