Monitor several AWS accounts with IAM roles (AssumeRole)

The legacy CloudWatch cross-account observability is no longer supported. If you previously monitored linked AWS accounts through a single primary account, those instances are no longer visible.

To continue monitoring these accounts, add each linked account individually using the IAM Role (AssumeRole) method.

Step 1: Prepare IAM roles in linked accounts

In each linked AWS account, create an IAM role with a trust policy that allows the primary monitoring account (or the EC2 instance running the poller) to assume the role.

Attach the permissions policy required for cloud monitoring. For details, see Establish AWS IAM permissions.

Step 2: Add linked accounts to the SolarWinds Platform

1. In SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > Cloud Discovery.

2. Select Amazon AWS and then click Next.

3. Enter a Display Name for the cloud account.

4. If the SolarWinds Platform runs on an AWS EC2 instance with an instance role (IMDS), leave Access Key ID and Secret Access Key empty.

5. Provide the primary account credentials.

6. Optionally, enter one or more IAM Role ARNs the SolarWinds Platform should assume for this account.

   Supported formats for Role ARN:

   • Format: arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT_ID:role/ROLE_NAME
   • External ID: arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT_ID:role/ROLE_NAME|EXTERNAL_ID
   • Role chain: ROLE_ARN_1;ROLE_ARN_2

7. Complete the wizard to select regions and services.