Cloud Resource Tagging Standardization and Tracking

Proper tagging of cloud resources is crucial for effective and accurate cloud cost allocation, particularly when dealing with large, multi-cloud environments. In AWS, due to the free-form nature of resource tags, inconsistent tagging is a common issue. This can hinder the ability to allocate costs to specific teams, projects, products, or cost centers. In addition, some resources may not get tagged for various reasons, leading to incomplete data for cost management. To address these challenges, CloudYali provides tools for resource tagging standardization and compliance tracking, which are available under the Tags section in the CloudYali Console.

The Tags section allows users to:

• Monitor the tagging status of cloud resources, including identifying untagged resources.
• Consolidate similar tags under standard tags and ensure consistency across the cloud environment.
• Track the tagging trend of resources over time.

Filters for Tagging Analysis

The Filters panel on the CloudYali Dashboard allows users to refine the tagging analysis by various parameters, including:

• Date Range: Select a custom time frame for cost and tagging analysis.
• Cloud Provider: Filter by cloud providers such as AWS or GCP.
• Account: Narrow down the view to a specific account for precise analysis.
• Region: Focus on specific geographical regions.
• Service: Filter costs by the type of cloud service to see tagging details specific to that service.
• Tag Key and Tag Value: Use these filters to analyze costs based on specific tags and their values, helping teams track compliance for specific projects or departments.

Using these filters, teams can drill down into the exact tagging details they need to analyze resource usage and cost allocation.

Tagging Overview Dashboard

The Tags Dashboard provides an overview of the tagging status of cloud resources to help users gain insights into how tagging affects cost allocation and compliance.

Tagging Status by Cost

The Tagging Status by Cost widget provides a breakdown of the percentage of cloud resources that are tagged versus those that are untagged, along with their respective costs. This view helps teams identify gaps in tagging and understand the financial impact of untagged resources.

For example:

• Tagged Resources: Shows the proportion of resources that have been properly tagged, and their associated costs.
• Untagged Resources: Displays the percentage of resources that are missing tags and the corresponding costs. Untagged resources can lead to inaccurate cost attribution, making it harder to allocate expenses correctly.

The Tagging Status by Cost section is useful for teams looking to prioritize tagging efforts based on financial impact.

Tagging Trend

The Tagging Trend widget helps track the tagging status of resources over a period of 30 days. This feature is helpful for understanding the changes in tagging consistency over time and identifying whether tagging efforts are improving.

The Tagging Trend graph:

• Displays the proportion of tagged and untagged resources over a 30-day period.
• Helps teams monitor improvements or regressions in tagging practices.

By analyzing the tagging trend, organizations can assess the effectiveness of their tagging policies and adjust their efforts accordingly.

Cost Per Tags

The Cost Per Tags view provides detailed cost information for each tag-value combination. This section allows teams to understand how different tags contribute to cloud spending and helps in identifying high-cost tags or services.

Users can utilize filters to refine the cost analysis by selecting specific tags, cloud providers, accounts, and more. This helps teams focus on areas that need further optimization or cost reduction.

Standard Tags and Tag Consolidation

CloudYali provides the Standard Tags Manager, a feature designed to help teams consolidate and standardize tags across their cloud environments. This is especially helpful for addressing inconsistent tag keys and values, such as:

• Environment vs. environment vs. env
• CostCenter vs. cost-center

Tag Consolidation

The Tag Consolidation feature identifies non-standard tags and maps them to their corresponding standard tag keys. This helps teams correct tags with syntax errors, spelling mistakes, or inconsistencies. The Similar Tag Keys section provides a list of standard keys along with the non-standard variations detected in the cloud environment.

For example:

• Standard Key: Environment
• Actual Key: environment (lowercase variation)

The Resources with Non-Standard Tag Keys section lists the resources that have non-standard tags, along with details such as the cloud provider, account, service, and region. This helps teams identify specific resources that require tag updates.

Standard Tags Manager

The Standard Tags Manager provides an interface for managing and enforcing standardized tags across the cloud environment. Teams can use this feature to:

• Add New Tags: Define new standard tags that should be used across resources.
• Edit Tags: Modify existing standard tags.
• Delete Tags: Remove tags that are no longer required.

Example Usage: Suppose your organization wants to ensure that every resource is tagged with an Environment tag to indicate whether it belongs to development, staging, or production. However, teams have been using variations like environment, env, and ENV. With the Standard Tags Manager, you can standardize this tag to Environment and consolidate all the variations under this standard key. This ensures consistent tagging across the entire cloud environment, making it easier to filter resources and accurately allocate costs.

Standardizing tags ensures that all resources are tagged consistently, which in turn improves cost attribution and reporting accuracy.

Steps for Tagging Compliance Tracking

1. Navigate to the Tags Section: Log in to the CloudYali Console and click on the Tags heading.
2. Review Tagging Status by Cost: Use the Tagging Status by Cost widget to identify the percentage of tagged and untagged resources.
3. Monitor Tagging Trend: Check the Tagging Trend to understand the progress of tagging compliance over the last 30 days.
4. Consolidate Tags: Use the Tag Consolidation feature to identify and standardize similar tags. This helps in maintaining uniformity across the environment.
5. Manage Standard Tags: Utilize the Standard Tags Manager to add, edit, or delete tags. This step ensures that your tagging standards are up-to-date.
6. Filter for Specific Analysis: Apply filters such as cloud provider, account, region, or specific tags to get precise insights into tagging compliance and its impact on cloud costs.

Scenarios Where Tagging Features Are Useful

Scenario 1: Cost Allocation by Project

Problem: A large organization runs multiple projects across different departments, each using a variety of cloud resources. Due to inconsistent tagging practices, it becomes challenging to determine how much each project is spending on cloud services, making it difficult to budget appropriately and track spending per project.

Solution: By using CloudYali's Standard Tags Manager, teams can ensure that each resource is tagged consistently with a Project key and a value indicating the project name (e.g., Project: MarketingAnalytics or Project: WebsiteRevamp).

Steps to Solve:

1. Standardize Project Tags: Use the Standard Tags Manager to define a standard Project tag that all teams should use.
2. Consolidate Existing Tags: If teams are using variations like project_name or proj, consolidate these tags under the standardized Project tag using the Tag Consolidation feature.
3. Monitor Compliance: Use the Tagging Status by Cost widget to monitor the resources tagged with Project and identify any untagged or inconsistently tagged resources.

This approach ensures that all resources related to a specific project can be accurately tracked, making cost allocation much easier and more precise.

Scenario 2: Identifying Untagged Resources for Security Compliance

Problem: Untagged resources can lead to compliance issues, especially in organizations that require every resource to be associated with an owner or environment. These untagged resources may also create security vulnerabilities if they are not actively monitored.

Solution: Use CloudYali's Tagging Status by Cost widget and the Filters feature to identify untagged resources and take corrective actions.

Steps to Solve:

1. Identify Untagged Resources: Navigate to the Tagging Status by Cost section to see the percentage and cost of untagged resources.
2. Apply Filters: Use filters such as Cloud Provider, Account, and Region to identify untagged resources in specific environments.
3. Standardize Tags: Assign the required tags, such as Owner or Environment, to the untagged resources using the Standard Tags Manager.

This helps in ensuring that all resources comply with security policies and are associated with proper ownership, reducing the risk of unmanaged cloud resources.

Scenario 3: Reducing Costs by Analyzing High-Cost Tags

Problem: The cloud spending for a specific team or department is higher than expected, and it is unclear which resources or tags are contributing the most to the cost.

Solution: Use the Cost Per Tags view to identify high-cost tag-value combinations and optimize resource usage accordingly.

Steps to Solve:

1. Navigate to Cost Per Tags: Go to the Cost Per Tags section in the Tags dashboard.
2. Analyze High-Cost Tags: Identify which tag-value combinations (e.g., Environment: Production) are contributing most to the cloud spending.
3. Take Action: Coordinate with the respective team to evaluate the resources associated with high-cost tags. Use the Standard Tags Manager to ensure that cost-related tags such as Environment or Team are used consistently for easier tracking and cost reduction.

By analyzing high-cost tags, teams can pinpoint inefficiencies and take steps to reduce spending, such as decommissioning unused resources or scaling down over-provisioned instances.

Scenario 4: Improving Tagging Compliance Over Time

Problem: Tagging compliance is inconsistent across different departments, leading to difficulty in tracking improvements or regressions over time.

Solution: Use the Tagging Trend feature to monitor tagging compliance over a 30-day period and adjust tagging strategies based on the observed trend.

Steps to Solve:

1. Monitor Tagging Trend: Use the Tagging Trend graph to see the tagging compliance trend over the last 30 days.
2. Adjust Tagging Policies: If there is a decline in tagging compliance, work with teams to reinforce tagging policies and educate them on the importance of proper tagging.
3. Track Improvements: Use the trend to track improvements in tagging consistency and ensure that compliance goals are met.

This scenario helps organizations ensure that tagging compliance improves continuously, making cost management more effective.

Conclusion

CloudYali provides a comprehensive set of features to help teams standardize and track cloud resource tagging effectively. By using the Tags dashboard, Standard Tags Manager, and Tag Consolidation tools, organizations can ensure consistent tagging, accurate cost allocation, and streamlined compliance tracking.

These features empower teams to allocate cloud costs more accurately, identify discrepancies in resource tagging, and continuously improve tagging practices for better cloud cost management.

© 2024 CloudYali. All rights reserved.