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Resource Management:Functions and features

Last Updated:Aug 03, 2023

This topic describes the functions and features provided by the Resource Directory, Resource Group, Resource Sharing, Tag, and Resource Center services.

Resource Directory

  • Business-based creation of an organizational structure

    • In the era of globalization, enterprises establish branches or departments across regions. Resource Directory allows enterprises to address their business requirements, usage of cloud resources, and procurement and regulatory requirements in different regions.

    • Enterprises need to implement a large number of projects in diversified business environments. Resource Directory ensures reasonable investment, unified and controllable financial supervision, and optimized asset allocation for each project.

    • Resource Directory enables market segmentation. An enterprise can manage its business in groups based on market and customer demands. Each customer corresponds to a node in the resource directory of the enterprise. Resource Directory can isolate business and unify settlement.

  • Centralized management of all Alibaba Cloud accounts and resources

    If your enterprise has multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts, you can enable a resource directory and place the accounts in preset locations in the resource directory. This allows you to manage the accounts and the resources within them in a centralized manner.

  • Centralized management of bills and invoices of an enterprise

    • After your enterprise accounts are placed in preset locations in a resource directory, you can use one of the accounts as the billing account to unify settlement. You can also grant permissions to specific users to meet financial management requirements.

    • Resource Directory defines the financial units of an enterprise. This way, the enterprise can issue bills with different titles for resources in different groups based on its own financial requirements.

  • Integration with Resource Access Management (RAM) and other Alibaba Cloud applications

    • Resource Directory is integrated with the RAM service to implement finer-grained access control on a specific resource or resource group of an enterprise. RAM users in a resource directory can only access authorized resources.

    • A number of Alibaba Cloud applications collaborate with each other to provide standard and consistent services and reduce costs for enterprises. This depends on the output of the API used by Resource Directory.

Resource Group

  • An Alibaba Cloud account contains one default resource group and multiple custom resource groups.

  • A cloud resource can belong to only one resource group. A resource group cannot contain another resource group.

  • A resource group can contain cloud resources created in different regions.

  • Cloud resources in different resource groups within the same Alibaba Cloud account can be connected to the same virtual private cloud (VPC). For example, an ECS instance in Resource Group 1 can be connected to a VPC in Resource Group 2.

  • You can move the resources of the same Alibaba Cloud account between resource groups.

  • You can authorize a RAM user or user group to access a specific resource group.

Resource Sharing

  • The management account of a resource directory can share its resources with all members in the resource directory. A member in the resource directory can share its resources with the other members.

  • You can share multiple resources with different members at a time.

  • The system automatically deletes invalid sharing records within 48 hours to 96 hours.

Tag

  • Tags page of the Resource Management console

    You can create, query, edit, delete, or export tags on the Tags page of the Resource Management console.

    • A maximum of 20 tags can be added to a cloud resource.

    • A tag key or value can contain a maximum of 128 characters in length.

    • You can manage tags in different regions in a centralized manner on the Tags page. Information about tags is not shared across regions.

    • You can perform fuzzy searches for tag keys or values.

    • You can add tags to your favorites.

    • You can export resource data by tag.

    • You can add tags to multiple resources at a time.

  • Tag-related API operations

    You can call tag-related API operations to create, query, edit, or delete tags. The following two types of API operations are supported:

    • API operations provided by Alibaba Cloud services that support tags

    • API operations provided by the Tag service

Resource Center

  • Global resource view

    You can view resources that belong to different services or reside in different regions. If you use a single Alibaba Cloud account, you can view all resources within the account. If you use a resource directory to manage multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts, you can use the management account of the resource directory to view all resources within the members in the resource directory.

  • Resource search

    You can search for resources by region, service, resource type, resource ID, resource name, or tag.

  • Resource O&M and management

    After you find the resource that you want to manage, you can go to the corresponding service console with one click and perform subsequent operations. The resource details page integrates common O&M tools. For example, you can view the operation records of a resource on the details page of the resource.