Documentation forSolarWinds Service Desk

AWS configuration

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Prerequisites for Discovery connection

Before creating a Discovery connection in SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD):

  1. Review Best practices.
  2. Confirm you have a scanner up and running in your local environment, scanning data and collecting information from your local network.
  3. After you decide you would like to expand the data collected to include information stored on AWS Cloud, you must create a dedicated user including credentials via the AWS console. See Create a new user for more information.

The steps above ensure you have created a new secure connection between the selected scanner and the AWS API gateway. As part of the configuration you need to provide information regarding the AWS environment, user credentials, and the selected scanner.

Navigation

Setup > Discovery & Assets > Connections.

Create an AWS connection

  1. Navigate to Setup > Discovery & Assets.

  2. From the All Connections index page, click the Add icon, and from the dropdown menu, select AWS.

  3. In the AWS Cloud Discovery dialog, follow the instructions provided.

  4. Use the information below to help in configuration.

    Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required.

    Field

    Description

    Name*

    Create a meaningful name that will provide you with significant data.

    Name is for your ease and convenience.  This information does not affect the scanning process.

    Description

    Provide a meaningful description of the data.

    Scanner

    Select a scanner from the dropdown menu, which will establish the connection with the AWS API gateway.

    AWS Region*

    Mandatory field

    AWS User - Access key ID*

    Mandatory field

    AWS User - Secret access key

    Personal password

  5. Click Create on the top right of the screen to save the connection.

Be aware that any incorrect information provided in the configuration setup (for example, an incorrect password) will prevent proper reporting in the Scanning report.

Create a new user

If you need to create a user, go to https://console.aws.amazon.com//iam.

SolarWinds recommends you provide read-only permissions to the EC2 user - AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess

After AWS setup

After the connection is established, the scanner imports EC2 data from the AWS Cloud into your SWSD database as an asset, including details such as CPUs and memory. In addition, details from AWS Cloud are included such as region, zone, and other information.

Below is an example of the details extracted:

More information about Discovery connections

See Connections for information about:

  • Scanned ports and a list of the default ports scanned via Nmap
  • How to run an on-demand scan
  • How to pull a Last Scan Report
  • What data is pulled during Discovery through connections
  • Pulling fields from a mobile device via Intune
  • Obtaining management data from remote computers via WMI

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