Import from AWS

Description

Brainboard allows you to import your cloud infrastructure from AWS, and will generate the architecture diagram, the Terraform code and the tfstate for you.

Import from AWS provider prerequisites

When importing resources from AWS provider, Brainboard will scan your cloud account resources using the following AWS services:

• AWS Resource Groups Tagging: this service will list any resource which has been tagged at least once

• AWS resource explorer: this service will list all resources matching Resource Explorer view index.

Brainboard will scan your cloud account using the best effort method: it will try to find as many resources as possible, using AWS resource explorer in priority if possible.

Create indexes

In order for AWS Resource Explorer to list your existing resources, AWS needs to frequently update its search index.

The index is based per region, so we recommend creating indexes for all your regions and then selecting your main region as an aggregator index. An aggregator index will aggregate results from all other regions indexes.

If you haven't already created indexes, here are the steps to take:

1. Open the AWS Resource Explorer console

2. Navigate to the Settings menu in the left panel:

1. Click on Create Indexes:

1. Select all regions and click on Create Indexes:

1. Go back to the Settings menu, select your aggregator region and click on Change Index Type:

1. In the modal window, select Aggregator Index and click on Save changes:

Create a default view

When using Resource Explorer service, Brainboard will look for a default view in one of the regions you select during the import steps.

Here are the steps to create a default view in AWS Resource Explorer:

1. Open the AWS Resource Explorer console

2. Navigate to the Views menu in the left panel:

1. Click on Create View:

1. In the view creation form, set a name for your view and make sure you select the region containing the aggregator index you created in the previous step:

1. Once the view has been created, select the view and click on Actions button to set this view as default view:

Import cloud resources

Once your account is correctly configured to list cloud resources, you can import them into a new Brainboard architecture.

1. Click on new architecture button in the top left corner

2. Select the import from your infrastructure option:

1. Select the From you Cloud providers option:

1. Select AWS

1. Select the credentials / the account that you want to import from

1. The next pages explain the mechanism to use to import your infrastructure. Please read them to know which way is best for you and click Next

1. Select the region(s) of your infrastructure

1. Brainboard scans your region(s) and list all the resources for you that you can filter exactly those you want to import

1. Give a name to your architecture and click on Start import

This window will also display the remaining import credits in your Brainboard account.

Every time you select a resource to import, the number of credits that will be deducted from your account displayed at the bottom of the window is refreshed.