THE AWS SIMPLE MAP
Updated: Nov 27, 2018
By: Majed Amer, Cloudivize Technologies; Co-Founder
Background
Using cloud services, specially AWS, is addictive. The more you use it, the more you get used to it. The way, for getting used to the easiness of achieving complex tasks simply in few clicks, is short. Just go and grab it. After first cloud deployments at AWS, it becomes the most available option, so more and more cloud services are consumed, architectures become complex, and spread over many AWS services.
One day, you wake up and realized that you are so deep in that, and successfully managed to accumulate large amount of assets. By the sudden you start asking, who will manage all of that? Do you really have a full track on all accumulated assets? Are you sure you know what exactly you are paying for? And do you really (still) need that?
The addiction illustration, came into my mind, when interviewing some AWS administrator users at many companies providing SaaS solutions on top of AWS. I met so many AWS users, that are so terrified deleting cloud assets, and they prefer keeping it, paying for it, and just not to confront the thoughts of data lose. Their assets keep growing and the bill to Amazon grows with it too. Digging more into that, I realized, those users are not 100% certain if the asset is not used somewhere else, by some other component in their deployments.
Observing some AWS users (specially architects) trying to “reverse engineer” existing deployment architecture, and trying to figure out all relationships between assets, raises some flags. When seeing users writing down IDs and ARNs, trying to follow the “breadcrumbs” of relationships, you must think “there is something wrong”, and “must be another way!”
Figure 1: Intuitive graphical view
In that moment Cloudivize spark ignited and new mission came to life
The Cloudivize Mission
Straight to the point, Cloudivize mission is: Simplifying AWS Usage, Intuitive Viewing, and Transparent Cost Management
In more details, in Cloudivize AWS users can:
Visualize cloud assets in the most intuitive way, it is simply graphical map of your cloud assets, with all relationships included
No more struggling with relationship tracking, it is there by glace
Operate assets in-place and in-context
No need to navigate between AWS services to operate large deployments. No need for long navigations back and forth
Generate deployment architect snapshots in one click
No need for exhaustive reverse engineering
View any asset cost (and age) at the same view
No need for digging into multiple billing reports
Holistic view of all regions
No need for switching back-and-forth between regions
No more hidden, forgotten or lost assets at your AWS account
Figure 2: Holistic view of all regions
A Humble Start
Cloudivize Technologies just released a beta version to fulfill this mission. It is a humble start, but with huge ambitions, to expand for more territories that are inline to the “Mission”. At Cloudivize we decided to start from the top pain point, which is viewing existing assets (asset allocation is not supported yet). At this beta release Cloudivize provides high coverage for AWS services and types, but not all. We put high attention to the first types we support, those are the most common used types, and the ones that are mostly paid.
Possible Expansion
Cloudivize vision is quite wide, hence, we are asking our users to help us drive this vision, to help navigate into the most important features
Here are selected features at our road-map:
Automatic recognition of dead, old and/or less-used assets
Supporting AWS services allocation
Providing multiple AWS accounts (consolidated billing) in single view (like regions view)
Smart deployment tips, where Cloudivize can recommend architectural improvements
Custom and logical relationships. E.g. some relationships between assets are imposed from internal deployed applications, so users can indicate that in their Cloudivize view
Takeaway
AWS enables you to allocate sensitive cloud assets in a very easy way, but as you grow, you need a simple way for tracking and managing your assets. Long lists and tables is not the optimum way for assets management and cost tracking. Cloudivize graphical view provides you a holistic insight by integrating all you need in one view
Join Cloudivize Beta
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