Enabling cross-Region search by creating an aggregator index - AWS Resource Explorer
About the aggregator index

AWS Resource Explorer now provides immediate access to resource search and discovery capabilities in a Region. With this launch, you no longer need to activate Resource Explorer to discover your resources. Learn more

Enabling cross-Region search by creating an aggregator index

With cross-region search enabled, you can search for resources across all of the Regions in your AWS account.

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About the aggregator index

AWS Resource Explorer stores the information it collects about the resources in an AWS Region to a user-owned (local) index that Resource Explorer creates and maintains in that Region. For example, assume that you have an Amazon EC2 instance in the US West (Oregon) Region. Resource Explorer stores the details about that resource in the user-owned (local) index in the US West (Oregon) Region.

To support searching for resources across all AWS Regions in your account, you can convert the user-owned (local) index in one Region to be the aggregator index for your account.

Resource Explorer automatically creates user-owned indexes when users with appropriate permissions perform search operations in a Region. This automatic creation occurs when users have both, at minimum, the permissions in the AWSResourceExplorerReadOnlyAccess managed policy and the iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission, or when the service-linked role already exists in the account and users have search permissions.

The aggregator index contains a replicated copy of the user-owned (local) index in every other Region where you have a user-owned index for Resource Explorer. This lets you create views in the Region that contains the aggregator index whose results can include resources from all AWS Regions in the account.

The following diagram shows an example of how the aggregator index works. In this example AWS account, the administrator does the following:

  • Completes setup of Resource Explorer in three AWS Regions (us-east-1, us-west-2, and eu-west-1) by searching in or directly creating indexes in those Regions. Each Region contains its own user-owned (local) index.

  • Does not create a user-owned index in the sa-east-1 Region. Resources from sa-east-1 will not appear in cross-region search results from other Regions.

  • Creates the aggregator index for the account in the us-west-2 Region. This causes Resource Explorer to replicate information from the user-owned (local) indexes in all other Regions where Resource Explorer where a user-owned (local) index exists. This allows searches performed in us-west-2 to include resources from all three Regions in which Resource Explorer setup is complete.

This configuration means that a user can perform cross-Region searches in only us-west-2, which contains the aggregator index. Only views from that Region can return results from all Regions in the account.

4 Regions: Resource Explorer registered in 3. Default view, aggregator index, or AWS account in 1.
Legend
Gear icon with magnifying glass, representing system configuration or search settings. Resource Explorer is set up with a user-owned (local) index in this AWS Region. Information about the Region's resources is stored in a local index in that Region. Every Region's user-owned (local) index is also replicated (indicated by the arrows) to the Region that contains the aggregator index.
Notebook icon representing a document or file with lined pages. The index in this AWS Region is configured to be the aggregator index for the account. Resource Explorer replicates the resource information collected in the user-owned (local) indexes of all other Regions into the aggregator index in this Region. Searches made in this Region can include results from all Regions with user-owned (local) indexes in the account.
Blue square border with white interior, representing a placeholder for an image. The default view created by Quick Setup includes all resources in all AWS Regions with user-owned (local) indexes.