# Organizations and environments

An organization contains members and one or more environments. An environment defines a cloud provider, management type, region, applications, credentials, studios, and resources.

## Create a Managed Environment

![Create a managed CLOUDflex environment](../../../assets/img/admin-guide-screenshots/create-environment.png)

1. Open **Organization Settings**.
2. Under **Environments**, select **Create Environment**.
3. Enter a name that identifies the account, region, or production boundary.
4. Select **AWS** as the cloud provider.
5. Choose **Managed**.
6. Select the AWS region.
7. Select **Create**.

## Create a Self-Hosted AWS Environment

In a self-hosted environment, CLOUDflex operates resources in your organization's AWS account. Before creating the environment, complete the [AWS Self-Hosted Prerequisites](/self-host-cloudflex/aws-prerequisites/). You need the access key ID and secret for the dedicated IAM identity during environment creation.

:::caution
Do not use personal administrator credentials. Create a dedicated IAM identity with only the permissions required by CLOUDflex.
:::

After completing the prerequisites:

1. Open **Organization Settings**.
2. Under **Environments**, select **Create Environment**.
3. Enter a name that identifies the AWS account, region, or production boundary.
4. Select **AWS** as the cloud provider.
5. Choose **Self-hosted**.
6. Select the AWS region.
7. Enter the access key ID and secret for the dedicated IAM identity.
8. Select **Create**.

## Supported AWS Regions

Supported regions shown in the staged UI are `us-east-1`, `us-east-2`, `us-west-1`, `us-west-2`, `eu-central-1`, `eu-west-1`, `eu-west-2`, `me-central-1`, `me-south-1`, `ca-central-1`, `ap-southeast-1`, and `ap-southeast-2`.

:::caution
Deleting an environment is destructive. Confirm that its applications and resources are no longer needed before approving the dialog.
:::