Understanding “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets” vs “AWS Taggable Assets Only” in CloudHealth

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

Customers using CloudHealth Perspectives will see multiple AWS asset type options, including “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets” and “AWS Taggable Assets Only.” This can lead to confusion about which asset type to use, why both exist, and how they impact tag-based allocation and visibility.

CloudHealth maintains an asset gather tree for AWS under “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets,” which pulls in both taggable assets and their related infrastructure. However, this curated model can sometimes lag behind newly released AWS services, so not all taggable AWS asset types are immediately included in this asset type.

Resolution

Behavior of “AWS Taggable Assets Only”
“AWS Taggable Assets Only” returns a flat list of AWS resources that are directly taggable in AWS and recognized as taggable by CloudHealth (for example, EC2 instances, EBS volumes, RDS instances, S3 buckets, and similar services).​

• Assets are included only if AWS supports tags on that resource type and CloudHealth ingests them as taggable.

• No associated or dependent infrastructure is automatically added; the set is strictly the taggable resources themselves.​

• This asset type is recommended for:

  • Tag coverage audits.

  • Verifying that all currently taggable AWS resource types, including newly introduced services, are visible in CloudHealth.​

For background on taggable assets and tag use in Perspectives, see:

• Introduction to Perspectives:
  https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-tanzu/cloudhealth/tanzu-cloudhealth/saas/tnz-cloudhealth/using-and-managing-tanzu-cloudhealth-introduction-to-perspectives.html ​

• Tag Management in Tanzu CloudHealth:
  https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-tanzu/cloudhealth/tanzu-cloudhealth/saas/tnz-cloudhealth/using-and-managing-tanzu-cloudhealth-tag-management.html ​

Behavior of “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets”
“AWS Taggable + Associated Assets” leverages a CloudHealth-maintained asset gather tree for AWS. This tree defines relationships between resources (for example, instances to volumes, volumes to snapshots), allowing CloudHealth to pull in both taggable assets and their related infrastructure.​

• When you use this asset type in a Perspective, CloudHealth can group:

  • Directly tagged resources, and

  • Associated assets that may not be tagged or may not be taggable.

• Examples of associated assets include:

  • From a tagged EC2 instance: attached EBS volumes, EBS snapshots, ENIs, security groups, and Elastic IPs.

  • From a tagged RDS instance: parameter groups, option groups, subnet groups, and snapshots.

  • From a tagged load balancer: target groups and associated security groups.​

Because the gather tree is curated by the CloudHealth product team, newly released AWS services may not immediately appear in this asset type. Until the tree is updated, a new taggable resource might be ingested as taggable but still not be modeled as part of “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets.”​

Additional guidance on using this asset type when building tag-based Perspectives is available here:

• Building a Perspective using a tag for categorization:
  https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/283268/building-a-perspective-using-a-tag-for-c.html​

Why both asset types are needed

Using both asset types together is considered a best practice:

• AWS Taggable Assets Only

  • Ensures coverage of all taggable AWS resources, including newer services that CloudHealth has started ingesting but may not yet have mapped into the gather tree.

  • Ideal for governance checks and tag completeness reporting.​

• AWS Taggable + Associated Assets

  • Provides a richer, relationship-aware view for Perspectives, pulling in related infrastructure around tagged resources so cost and governance align with complete application or environment footprints.​

In short, “AWS Taggable + Associated Assets” is used to build comprehensive, relationship-based groupings in Perspectives, while “AWS Taggable Assets Only” acts as a safety net to ensure that all taggable asset types, including newly introduced AWS services, are still captured and reportable in CloudHealth.