Ensure that your AWS Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) are using appropriate naming conventions for tagging in order to manage them more efficiently and adhere to AWS resource tagging best practices. A naming convention is a well-defined set of rules useful for choosing the name of an AWS resource. Cloud Conformity strongly recommends using the following pattern (default pattern) for naming your AWS VPCs: ^vpc-(ue1|uw1|uw2|ew1|ec1|an1|an2|as1|as2|se1)-(d|t|s|p)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$
. In case you need to create your custom naming pattern, the default one can be easily replaced within the rule configuration settings available on Cloud Conformity console.
This rule can help you with the following compliance standards:
- APRA
- MAS
- NIST4
For further details on compliance standards supported by Conformity, see here.
This rule resolution is part of the Conformity Security & Compliance tool for AWS.
Naming (tagging) your AWS VPCs consistently has several advantages such as providing additional information about the VPC location and usage, promoting consistency within the selected AWS region, distinguishing fast similar resource stacks from one another, avoiding naming collisions, improving clarity in cases of potential ambiguity and enhancing the aesthetic and professional appearance.
Default Pattern Format
vpc-RegionCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationStackCode
Default Pattern Components
- RegionCode
-
(ue1|uw1|uw2|ew1|ec1|an1|an2|as1|as2|se1)
for us-east-1, us-west-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1, eu-central-1, ap-northeast-1, ap-northeast-2, ap-southeast-1, ap-southeast-2, sa-east-1. - EnvironmentCode
-
(d|t|s|p)
for development, test, staging, production. - ApplicationCode
-
([a-z0-9\-]+)
for the application stack that runs within the VPC (e.g. bid-data-app-stack).
Default Pattern Examples
vpc-us-east-1-p-bid-data-app-stack
vpc-us-west-2-p-web-app-stack
Audit
To verify the naming conventions used for tagging your Virtual Private Clouds, perform the following:
Remediation / Resolution
To implement a well-defined naming convention for tagging your existing Virtual Private Clouds based on the rule default pattern (i.e. ^vpc-(ue1|uw1|uw2|ew1|ec1|an1|an2|as1|as2|se1)-(d|t|s|p)-([a-z0-9\\-]+)$), perform the following:
References
- AWS Documentation
- Tagging Your Amazon EC2 Resources
- What are some recommended best practices for tagging my Amazon EC2 resources?
- Tag Restrictions
- AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) Documentation
- ec2
- describe-vpcs
- create-tags
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You are auditing:
VPC Naming Conventions
Risk level: Low