Use Amazon Web Services (AWS)? The AWS interface is great: you can service anywhere in the world and more. It’s not, however, without its limitations.

What’s missing?

What if you want to view relationships between things (such as backups, volumes, and snapshots) in a documented view of information and data? This helps you to better understand the environments that you have set up in AWS and how they work (as well as how they work together).

When you visualize your AWS infrastructure, you can, for example:

  • Visualize and see relationships between gateways
  • Locate security groups that aren’t in use
  • Identify AWS volumes with no snapshots or AMI’s
  • See which snapshots not associated with an AMI
  • See Elastic IPs that are not in use

When you can connect IT documentation and network diagram software, such as netTerrain, to your AWS infrastructure, you can create, and view, a diagram of a production or dev diagram. This allows you to understand the relationships, the security groups, the servers, the EC2 instances, see if there are snapshots, are there images, and so on — and see it all in just one view.

With netTerrain, you get this data on a regular and updated basis — with no manual work on your part. You can click on an image, and not only confirm if the image exists, but if it’s associated with a snapshot in a volume — and so on. You can understand the security group and click on — and actually see — the rules for the group if you choose to — and you can always go to your AWS, login, and see it there.

There are lots of data points you can get with netTerrain’s AWS connector. However, you do not need to pull them all in. Of course this in reality is a small subset of all the data AWS really provides. But you can see below the data points that can be grabbed if needed.

netTerrain AWS Connector, Examples

The ultimate goal here is to get production type views and get them documented. Then you can add additional information that may not be discoverable, such as: user passwords, applications, and really anything you need in the environment to get into and manage it.

Want more information on netTerrain’s AWS connector? Click here to view a pre-recorded webinar all about it. Interested in IT documentation and network diagram software that makes it easy to connect and integrate with your existing tools? Find out more about netTerrain: you can get a free trial, schedule a demo, and get your questions answered. Click here to schedule a 15-minute zero-sales-tactics discovery call.

About Jason Sherman

As Graphical Networks’ Sales Engineering and Support Services Manager, Jason Sherman leads the pre and post sales cycle with the entire Graphical Networks software portfolio, and ensures current customers are able to use the software to its fullest potential.