Unused Assets Decommissioning Checklist Example

Overview

Decommissioning unused assets in your workload is essential to minimize resource waste, reduce operational costs, and enhance your sustainability efforts. By identifying and removing these unnecessary resources, you help ensure that only the required assets remain in service. This approach aligns with AWS Well-Architected best practices for sustainable resource management.

Checklist Steps

1. Resource Inventory: Begin by generating an inventory of all running resources, such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, and unused EBS volumes.
2. Usage Analysis: Investigate resource metrics (CPU, memory, and storage utilization) and identity access patterns to detect underutilized or obsolete items.
3. Tagging and Identification: Apply consistent naming and tagging conventions to make it easier to track ownership, purpose, and relevance of each asset.
4. Review and Approval: Develop a formal process for stakeholders to review and confirm whether an asset is truly unnecessary before you decommission it.
5. Automated Alerts: Configure alerts or automated scripts to detect idle resources regularly and escalate for decommissioning.
6. Document Decommissioning: Maintain records of assets you remove to allow auditing, cost analysis, and better decision-making.

Implementation Tips

• Scheduling: Schedule routine assessments (e.g., monthly or quarterly) to identify and decommission unused assets in a consistent manner.
• Automation: Use AWS tools like AWS Config, AWS Lambda, or AWS Systems Manager to automate detection and removal of obsolete resources.
• Policy Enforcement: Enforce policies that require regular tag validation, cost monitoring, and justification for underutilized or idle assets.

This example checklist helps you systematically reduce waste and maintain resources that align with your demand. Adopting a structured decommissioning process fosters a culture of sustainability and cost-awareness within your organization.