Creating a Resource Group
To create a resource group, you tag resources (if you have not already done so) and then create a view of resources that have common tags or common strings in those tags. You can create your own custom tags or use tags created by others in your same account. You also can use the tags that AWS automatically creates, such as the stack name in AWS CloudFormation. To use Tag Editor to add, remove, and manage tags, see Working with Tag Editor. For a list of ways to tag resources within their respective services, see Applying Tags.
Every tag consists of a key and a value. In search engine terms, adding values is like searching for them with the OR operator (all items found are included). But adding keys is like searching for them with AND (only items with all keys are included). As a result, adding more values to each tag key that you specify can increase the size of your resource group, but adding more keys might reduce the group size.
For example, suppose you have an account with only two resources, a pair of Amazon EC2 instances. To each instance you assign a tag with the key name Stack. One of the stack keys has the value Production and the other has the value Test. One of the instances also has a tag with the key name Owner and the value Jan.
If you create a resource group with the Stack key and both Production and Test values, your group will have two members. On the other hand, if you then add the Owner key to your group definition, your group will shrink to one, because only one instance has that key.
You can also create groups based on a portion of a tag value. For example, if you have alpha, beta, and release versions of a project, you might have a naming scheme for each resource's name key that includes multiple points of information. For example, you might have several Amazon S3 buckets whose Name keys have values like John Alpha Bucket, John Beta Bucket, Mary Alpha Bucket, and so on. To create a resource group for your alpha version, you would specify only tags whose value includes Alpha. Or you could create a group of all buckets by specifying that the tag value include Bucket.
Not every AWS resource can be included in a resource group. For a list of currently supported resources, see Supported Resources.
To create a resource group, you begin by searching for tags or tag strings that your group will have in common. You perform this search either on the Create a resource group page or with Tag Editor.
To create a resource group
Sign in to the AWS Management Console. In the navigation bar, click AWS and select Create a Resource Group. Alternatively, you can navigate to the console home page at https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/default and click Create a Group there.
On the Create a resource group page, type a name for your group in Group name.
For Tags, select the name of a tag key in the first box. You can type in the box to search for a key based on characters it contains.
(Optional) Click the box next to that and do any of the following:
Leave the box empty to find tags with the specified key and any value.
Select Empty value to find tags with the specified key but no value.
Type one or more characters to find the values that you are looking for. Select a value from the list to find an exact match or select the Contains: option to find values that contain the characters that you typed.
If you don’t see any values listed, you might not have permissions to view available tags. In that case, you can simply type in a complete value and press Enter to start searching.
Click the x next to an item that you added to remove it from the search criteria.
You can repeat any of the above to search for multiple values for each tag key. Resources whose values have any of the criteria for that particular key will be included in the resource group. The searches are case sensitive.
For more information on tag keys and values, see What Is a Tag?
Note
Before a key and its values appear in the autocomplete list, they must have been applied to at least one resource in the current account. If you don’t see a tag that you just applied to a resource, try refreshing your browser window.
If the autocomplete list still doesn't work, you may need to contact your administrator to get the necessary permissions. For more information, see Obtaining Permissions for Resource Groups
(Optional) To further refine your group, click Add a tag key to specify more tag keys and values. The group will contain only those resources that have all the specified tags, so the more tags you specify, the fewer resources your group will contain. If you change your mind, click Remove next to any specified key and value.
(Optional) For Regions, click the box and select the regions that you want to include in your group. Repeat for as many regions as desired. To remove a region, click the x by its name. Leave the box empty to include all regions.
(Optional) For Resource types, click the box and select the kind of resources that you want to include in your group. Repeat for as many resource types as desired. To remove a resource type, click the x by its name. Leave the box empty to include all resource types.
(Optional) When you have the desired settings, click Preview to see which resources are included based on your current settings. If desired, change any of the previous settings and click Preview again.
When you are satisfied with your group, click Save.
If you need to change the settings later, see Modifying What Resources Are in a Group.
To create a resource group from Tag Editor search results
In Tag Editor, search for the resources that you want in your group. You must include at least one tag key in your search.
When the search is complete, click View as resource group.
In the space provided, type a name for your resource group.
(Optional) Modify the settings for the resource group as explained in the preceding procedure. To see your changes, click Preview.
When you are satisfied with your group, click Save.
