Tags (From Detailed Billing)
CloudCheckr offers many reports which focus on tagging data from your detailed billing report (or DBR). These reports can help you keep track of your tagging conventions, set up rules to find improperly tagged resources, and keep track of which resources are associated with which tags. We currently offer the following Tag reports which take data from your DBR.Search Tags
The search tags report allows you to see the data associated with your tags. It will allow you to filter by any tag key, and then see resources associated with those keys.Lookup Resources
This report allows you to see any tags associated with a given resource. All you need to do is to enter the Resource ID in to the search box.Tagging Rules
The Tag Rules report allows you to more easily enforce your tagging policy across your AWS deployment. You can create rules that will ensure your running resources contain specific tag keys and values. CloudCheckr will run these rules against your AWS account and, within the Improperly Tagged Resources report, show you each resource that is not adhering to your rule(s).
Tag Keys and Values
Each tag rule must have a tag key defined. You can only enter one tag key within the Tag Key text box. If you would like to create a rule that looks for multiple tag keys simply click Add another tag. You can enter one or more tag values into the Tag Values text box. Separate multiple values using a comma. Example 1: You can enter Environment as your tag key and Production as your tag value. When CloudCheckr compares your resources versus this rule, any resource that does not have the Environment tag key will be flagged. Any resource that has Environment as its tag key and any other value other than Production as its value will be flagged. Example 2: You can enter Environment as your tag key and Production, QA, Development as your tag value. When CloudCheckr compares your resources versus this rule, any resource that does not have the Environment tag key will be flagged. Any resource that has Environment as its tag key and any other value other than Production or QA or Development as its value will be flagged. Alternatively, you can check the Require Any Tag Value checkbox and CloudCheckr will only compare your resources against the tag key.Rule Refinement
In addition to tag keys and values you can further refine your rules to look for specific resource types, and/or resources from specific AWS regions. To refine your rules simply choose, from either the Region or Resource Type box, what resource type or location you would like to run your rule against. You can click the binoculars icons to pull up the complete list of options. This will provide you with search capabilities on the lists and makes managing these lists easier. Once you have decided on your rule, click the Create Rule button at the bottom of the page. You can add as many rules as you'd like to your account.Improperly Tagged Resources
When CloudCheckr is processing updates to your detailed billing reports from Amazon, it will compare that data against your tag rules. Any improperly tagged resources discovered will be listed within the Improperly Tagged Resources report within CloudCheckr. Each time CloudCheckr gets an update from Amazon, it wipes out the Improperly Tagged Resources report and re-populates the report with the most up-to-date information.
Tag Mapping
Tag Mapping in CloudCheckr allows AWS users to create their own payer cost tags using any existing tag key and value from their billing reports. Among its many benefits is the ability to roll up cost assigned to multiple tags, reassign costs mistakenly assigned to the wrong resources, and create new tagging structures that were not created in AWS.
Production
intoProd
.
While these variations are fairly innocuous in the day-to-day management of AWS, they can make reconciling your bill at the end of the month quite difficult.
The second concern we hear quite often is how difficult it is to change or modify an already-existing tag structure. Proper tag implementation is complex and requires careful planning. Often, tagging is implemented before customers fully understand how
they want their tags structured. Adding or changing tags on hundreds or thousands of resources is time consuming and messy, but it’s necessary to organize the tags in a way so that costs can be properly attributed across an organization or a customer
base.
Tag mapping alleviates these issues by letting you create the tag you want, and then funneling the costs from the malformed or outdated tags to the new tag.
Let’s say your company utilizes an Environment
tag key with a tag value for Development
. Ideally your resources would be tagged with Environment | Development
.
However, across your various AWS services you have resources tagged with a number of variations of that tag, including:
environment | development
Environment | Dev
Env | Dev
We need to setup our master tag. In the "Map to Tag Key" box you will enter
Environment
. In the "Map to Tag Value" box you will enter Development
. Click Create. You have now created a master tag key/value pair.
Now we populate the cost tags of the AWS resources we want funneled to this tag. In the "Tag Key to Map" box we will enter environment
. In the "Tag Value To Map" box, we will enter Development
. Click Map
Tag. We will do the same for
Environment | Development
Environment | Dev
Env | Dev
Mapping Tags
Tag mappings can be created and managed within the Cost > AWS Billing menu of the report navigation. You can choose to either create your tag mappings directly within CloudCheckr, or you can create and upload a CSV into this screen. At the top of the report you will see two fields: one labeled "Map To Tag Key" and one labeled "Map to Tag Value".This is going to be a "Master Tag". The "Master Tag" is where the other tags will be mapped to. This is the tag that will display in your reports, that you will analyze costs against. Using the example from the Use Case above, we are going to enter Environment in the "Map to Tag Key" text box, and Development in the 'Map to Tag Value" text box. Click Create to add this tag to CloudCheckr. Once the "Master Tag" is created you will see it added to the Tag Mapping screen. Under the "Master Tag" you will see two new text boxes; "Tag Key To Map" and "Tag Value To Map". This is where you will enter the already-existing tags whose costs we want to map this "Master Tag". Sticking with the Use Case outlined above, we will map three tags:
-
Environment | Development
Environment | Dev
Env | Dev
Environment | Development
Environment | Dev
Env | Dev
Mapping a Property
You also have the option to map a property to the tag key and value. All you need to do is select the appropriate bubble, select which property you wish to map to the tag and select Save. The drop down gives you the option to map various property types. You can create as many “Master Tags” and mappings as you’d like following the steps outlined above. You can also remove any “Master Tag” or mapped tag by clicking on the ‘Remove’ link to the right of that item you’d like to remove.Mapping Tags Using CSV Upload
If you have a large list of tag mappings you would like to create within CloudCheckr, tag mappings can be bulk created via a CSV feed file. The concept is exactly the same as creating tag mappings within the CloudCheckr webapp. You need to populate four columns in the CSV:- Column A - Master Tag Key
- Column B - Master Tag Value
- Column C - Tag/Property Selector
- Column D - Mapped Tag/Property Key
- Column E - Mapped Tag/Property Value
Environment | Development
. In the CSV spreadsheet, we will populate column A with Environment
and column B with Development
.
Next we will select our mapping type and add the mappings for our three cost tags.
Those will each go into columns C, D, and E respectively. To select the tag mapping type, the value of column C must be false
. To select the property mapping type, column C must be true
. The properties available to map on
are:
- Account
- AvailabilityZone
- Operation
- Region
- Resource
- Service
- UsageType
Reload Billing Data
When your tag mappings are configured, any newly processed billing data will funnel costs properly to the "Master Tags". would like your historic billing data to be mapped against your mapping configuration, CloudCheckr will have to re-process your previous months of data.You can force your data to reload at any time by clicking on the "Reload Billing Data" button at the top of the report.Depending on the size of your detailed billing reports, and the number of historic months to process, this reload may take several hours.Tag Mapping – Splitting
In addition to standard Tag Mapping, CloudCheckr also offers the ability to use similar tag mappings to distribute cost proportional across multiple tags. This can be used to distribute costs across multiple projects (each designated with a unique tag), or to allocate costs as needed.In this report, you can create a Tag Mapping, then assign conditions to match records from your Detailed Billing Report. Finally, indicate how you would like to split those costs across multiple tag keys and tag values.