Cloudability Identify expensive, untagged resources using Resource ID

The Resource ID is a great dimension to identify the specific compute instances, storage buckets, storage volumes, and other AWS resources that drive costs the most. Additionally, it can be a great asset in identifying the most expensive, untagged resources.

Tagging as many AWS resources as possible sheds a lot of light on which resources are driving what costs from the numerous departments, projects, or teams your org might be running. Some assets can be very challenging to tag, such as EBS volumes, and RDS databases, for example.

In the example below, we generated a report of resources missing an environment tag. Typically, we see Account ID, Product Name, Region, and Cost. But, this doesn’t tell us specifically which resources are driving costs.

Adding Resource ID to a report of untagged AWS resources can help identify the most expensive, untagged resources.

This combination of measures lets you now view your most expensive assets, as well as creating a clean way to tag what was previously untaggable. For instance, now that you know a particular RDS database is costly, you can hunt it down, tag it, and monitor its cost and usage from here on out.