How to keep track of ephemeral VMs
Tracking ephemeral VMs is hard: they appear, run briefly, and vanish before most tools detect them. The result is missing context, incomplete CMDBs, and charges with no trace of what created them. FinOps teams need better ways to capture these short-lived resources.
Yesterday I joined a call organised by the FinOps Foundation. Two participants were seasoned practitioners, the sort who have seen enough cloud to know where the bodies are buried. Their shared complaint was simple: nobody can keep track of ephemeral VMs. These instances appear, sprint through their workload, vanish, and leave only a charge on the bill.
Stacklet has an elegant answer. Their AssetDB listens directly to CloudTrail. Every resource, even the briefest one, must announce itself with an API call and say bye-bye with another one. Capture these call and you get a real-time, accurate record of what existed, when, and for how long. No need for agents, regular scans, or detective work.
I discovered this because I am currently working with Stacklet, and it struck me as one of those ideas that feels obvious only after someone else builds it.
If you want to learn more, speak to Stacklet, and, please, mention that Frank sent you. It helps me, and it helps me highlight good work when I see it.
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