AWS Relationship Auto-Creation

We're excited to offer early access to a limited group of customers so we can incorporate feedback and ensure the experience scales well before making it generally available. If you would like to request access, please reach out to your account team.

What's new

Two new capabilities reduce the manual work of modeling your AWS footprint in Cortex:

• AWS account entities and account-to-resource relationships - Enable a setting on your AWS integration to automatically create an entity for each AWS account and link it to its resources.

• Tag-based auto-linking - Configure a relationship type to auto-link AWS resources to other Cortex entities (such as domains or services) based on AWS tag values.

Together, these eliminate the need to manually create AWS account entities or hand-author YAML to connect AWS resources to the rest of your catalog.

Auto-creating AWS account entities

When enabled, Cortex automatically creates an entity for each AWS account connected to your integration and links it to its AWS resources through a built-in, Cortex-managed relationship.

To enable AWS account auto-creation:

1. From the main sidebar, select Integrations.

2. Locate AWS, then click Settings.

3. Select the Integration settings tab.

   
4. Scroll to Accounts as entities, then toggle on Import AWS accounts as entities.

   

Once enabled:

• Cortex creates an AWS Account entity for each account that has been configured in Cortex.

• Each AWS resource is automatically linked to its parent account through a Cortex-managed relationship.

To view your AWS account entities:

1. From the main sidebar, expand Catalogs.

2. Select All entities, then select the Entity types tab.

3. Search for AWS account.

   
4. Select an entity type.

5. Select an entity.

6. From the Catalog menu, select the Relationships tab.

   

As new accounts are configured and resources are discovered, entities and relationships stay in sync automatically.

Tag-based auto-linking for AWS backed-entities

You can configure any relationship type to auto-link AWS resources to other Cortex entities based on matching tag values. This is the recommended way to connect AWS resources to domains, services, or custom entities within Cortex for modeling your architecture.

To configure tag-based auto-linking:

1. From the main sidebar, expand Catalogs.

2. Select All entities, then select the Relationship types tab.

3. Locate the relationship type you want to configure, then click the pencil icon. You can also create a new relationship type.

4. Scroll to the Auto-creation of relationships section.

   Note: For this section to appear, you must select at least one AWS-backed entity type as the source and/or destination.

5. From the Provider drop-down menu, select AWS.

6. Configure the Source tag key by doing one of the following:

   • Enter the AWS tag key on the source entity (e.g. cortex-entity-tag) OR

   • Toggle on Cortex provided tag to use Cortex's standardized tag. Toggle this on to use Cortex's managed entity tag key instead of specifying your own.

7. Configure the Destination tag key by doing one of the following:

   • Enter the tag key on the destination entity (e.g. AWS-tag-parent) OR

   • Toggle on Cortex provided tag to use Cortex's standardized tag. Toggle this on to use Cortex's managed entity tag key instead of specifying your own.

8. Click Save (or Create if it's a new relationship type).

   

Cortex scans entities matching the relationship type's source and destination definitions and creates a relationship wherever tag values match.

Example: Linking AWS resources to domains

To roll AWS resources up to a domain for scorecard reporting:

1. Tag your AWS resources with the domain they belong to (e.g. a domain tag with the domain's identifier).

2. Create or open a relationship type with AWS resources as the source and domains as the destination.

3. In the Auto-creation of relationships section, set the source tag key to domain and the destination tag key to the corresponding identifier on your domain entities.

4. Click Save. Cortex creates the relationships automatically.

You can now report on scorecards rolled up by domain across your AWS infrastructure.

Limitations

• Auto-creation currently supports AWS only. Additional providers coming soon.

• Tag changes in AWS may take up to one (1) sync cycle to reflect in Cortex.