Resources

Infrastructure resources overview for CloudThinker operations.

Track every cloud asset, run targeted discovery, and act on cost/security/performance findings in one place. Screenshots use AWS as an example, but flows apply to any supported cloud.

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The Problem

Cloud infrastructure grows faster than it’s tracked. Resources get provisioned for a project, the project ends, and the resources keep running. Tags are inconsistent. Nobody has a definitive answer to “how many EC2 instances do we have and what are they all doing?”

Traditional approaches:

• AWS Console: must click through each service and region manually
• aws ec2 describe-instances + spreadsheets: scripts break, output needs manual processing
• AWS Config: powerful but complex to query, no built-in recommendations
• Third-party CMDB tools: expensive, require agent installation, go stale quickly

The result: untracked resources are invisible to cost, security, and performance analysis. You can’t optimize what you can’t see.

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How Existing Tools Compare

Tool	What It Does	What’s Missing
AWS Console	Browse resources by service	No cross-service inventory, no optimization actions
AWS Config	Configuration tracking and compliance rules	Complex query language, no AI recommendations, no multi-cloud
AWS Resource Explorer	Cross-region resource search	Search only, no cost/security analysis, no actions
ServiceNow CMDB	Enterprise configuration database	Requires agent installation, expensive, goes stale without active maintenance
Terraform state	IaC-managed resource inventory	Only covers IaC-managed resources; manual/console-created resources invisible

CloudThinker Resources gives you live discovery, cross-cloud inventory, and direct optimization actions — all in one view, without writing scripts or maintaining agents.

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What Makes This Different

• On-demand and continuous discovery: scan on demand or let CloudKeepers continuously monitor — no agents to install
• Tag-based scoping: focus discovery on specific environments (production, staging) without noise
• Inline optimization: hover over any resource to immediately run cost optimization, security scan, or performance check
• Cloud-agnostic: same workflow for AWS, GCP, and Azure — not separate tools for each provider

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What you get

• Complete inventory across accounts with resource type filters and tags
• On-demand and continuous discovery across AWS services
• Inline actions to optimize cost, scan security, and check performance

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Prerequisites

• At least one cloud account connected (images show AWS, but any supported cloud works)
• Tags you want to use for scoping (e.g., ENV=dev, Environment=production)

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Quick Start

1. Open Resources

   Go to Infrastructure → Resources to start discovery.

2. Select cloud & services

   Choose the account, pick service types to scan, and scope with tags.

3. Review inventory

   See discovered assets, savings potential, and run actions per resource.

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How access and automation work

• Agents can operate on any resources your cloud permissions allow, not just the ones you discovered. Discovery makes it easier to manage those resources inside CloudThinker.
• CloudKeepers runs across all permitted resources in your cloud; it is not limited by resource discovery scope.
• Assessment requires discovered resources first and only evaluates the resources that have been discovered.

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Step-by-step guide

1. Launch discovery

   Click Connect for your cloud (AWS shown here) and start Resource Discovery. The banner shows the flow: connect, run first scan (~30s), then automate.

   
2. Pick services to scan

   Choose the services you want to include (names vary by cloud; AWS shown in the screenshot). Use Select All or search to narrow, then save when it matches your discovery scope.

   
3. Scope by tags

   • No selected tags → scan all tags/resources.
   • Selecting tags → only resources matching those tags are scanned.

   Add environment tags (e.g., ENV=dev, Environment=production) or Add Custom Tag for teams/projects/cost centers to focus the crawl.

   
4. Review inventory and act

   • See totals, potential savings, and per-resource entries.
   • Filter by resource name, service, or category (e.g., Compute).
   • Hover Actions to run Optimize Cost, Scan Security, or Check Performance on a resource.

   Use this to triage new findings and trigger targeted actions quickly.

   

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Tips

• Start broad, then narrow with tags to avoid missing critical resources.
• Keep discovery configurations versioned (note which services/tags you scan).
• After each scan, action high-value recommendations first (cost/security).

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What’s Next

CloudKeepers

Set up continuous monitoring so new resources are automatically evaluated

Assessment

Run a Well-Architected assessment on your discovered resources

Plan

Manage and track recommendations from resource optimization actions

Topology

Visualize discovered resources and their dependencies