AWX contains a top-level configuration item called an organization. This is a collection of inventories, projects, job templates, and teams (which, in turn, are a grouping of users). Hence, if you have two distinct parts of an enterprise that have entirely different requirements but still require the use of AWX, they can share a single AWX instance without the need for overlapping configuration in the user interface by virtue of organizations.

While users of the system administrator type have access to all organizations, normal users will only see the organizations and associated facets, and they are a really powerful way of segregating access to the differing parts of an enterprise deployment of AWX.

By way of example, when we created our inventory earlier in the chapter, you will notice that we ignored the ORGANIZATION field (which was set to default—the only organization that exists on a new AWX install). If we were to create a new organization called Mastery, then anyone who was not a member of this organization would be unable to see this inventory, regardless of the permissions or privileges they have (the exception to this being the system administrator user type, which can see everything).