29/11/2023, 20:00 Delete Unattached & Unused EBS Volumes in AWS | nOps

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Delete Unused AWS EBS Volumes

Risk level: Medium

Rule ID: EBS-001

An Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume is distinct from the lifecycle of its associated Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (EC2) instance. EBS volumes are attached to EC2 Instances as storage devices. By default,
unless you select the “Delete on Termination” option during instance launch, terminating the EC2 instance
will only detach the EBS volume, not delete it. In dynamic development and testing environments where EC2
instances are frequently launched and terminated, this can result in an accumulation of idle EBS volumes.
These unused volumes incur charges in your AWS account, even when they’re not in use. To improve cost
efficiency, it’s essential to eliminate these unused volumes. Additionally, deleting inactive EBS volumes is a
crucial security measure to prevent unauthorized access to any sensitive data that might be stored on them.

Rule EBS- 001 checks whether there are unused EBS Volumes in your AWS account. This rule can help you
with the following as well:

Compliance frameworks report

SOC 2 Readiness Report

AWS Well-Architected Lens

AWS Well-Architected Framework Lens

Audit
Carry out the following steps to find out if there are any unused EBS volumes in your cloud environment:

Using AWS Console Using AWS CLI 1. Run the describe-volumes

command to find out if there
are any unused EBS volumes in your cloud environment:

aws ec2 describe-volumes \\

--region us-east-1 \\
--filters Name=status,Values=available

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29/11/2023, 20:00 Delete Unattached & Unused EBS Volumes in AWS | nOps
2. A JSON Object containing configuration data for each detected unused EBS volume should be
returned as output:
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{
"Volumes": [
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{
"Attachments": [], Resources
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1d",
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"CreateTime": "2019-12-02T12:01:41.088000+00:00",

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"Encrypted": false,
"Size": 8,

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"SnapshotId": "snap-09328b730a42039c6",
**"State": "available",**
"VolumeId": "vol-0b810c6c7e4a334cb",
"Iops": 100,
"Tags": [
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{
"Key": "Name",
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"Value": "Ashish_ZF1"
}
],
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"MultiAttachEnabled": false
},
{
"Attachments": [],
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1d",
"CreateTime": "2019-12-13T04:20:57.505000+00:00",
"Encrypted": false,
"Size": 50,
"SnapshotId": "snap-0415d8298c7099b66",
**"State": "available",**
"VolumeId": "vol-06d24eb6b77f09e70",
"Iops": 150,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"MultiAttachEnabled": false
},
...
{
"Attachments": [],
"AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1d",
"CreateTime": "2020-02-07T08:29:07.029000+00:00",
"Encrypted": false,
"Size": 80,
"SnapshotId": "snap-0415d8298c7099b66",
**"State": "available",**
"VolumeId": "vol-012e179cf459c730e",
"Iops": 240,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"MultiAttachEnabled": false
}
]

Configure the AWS Config

rule

Remediation
Using AWS Console 1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console to access the EC2
dashboard via https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

2. Navigate to the left panel and click the Volumes under the Elastic Block Store section. (Similarly
to what we did in the Audit section).

3. Select the unused volume you intend to delete.

5. (Optional) Create a snapshot of your volume:

a. Select the Actions button and choose the Create Snapshot option:

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b. Fill in the description in the resulting box and click Create
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6. To delete the unused volume, click the Actions button again and choose the Delete Volume
option:

7. Confirm the deletion in the popup box.

Using AWS CLI Configure the AWS Config

rule

How Can nOps Help With Identifying And Deleting Unused EBS
Volumes?
nOps maximizes cost savings on auto-pilot, with seamless one-click integration with your cloud services. We
achieve this with zero engineering effort and complete reliability. With regard to different standards and
guidelines, nOps Rules have been curated by drawing insights from sources like compliance controls, the

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29/11/2023, 20:00 Delete Unattached & Unused EBS Volumes in AWS | nOps
well-architected framework, and customer feedback to assess AWS Workloads. The platform ensures

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alignment with key areas: Security, Cost, Reliability, Performance, and Operations, making it easier to spot
deviations or issues.
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The “Unused EBS Volumes Rule” is a valuable feature by nOps. It helps identify volumes that currently reside
in an unattached or available state and also monitors stopped EBS volumes. With various useful filters, nOps
allows you to focus on specific aspects such as by account or region. Additionally, you can take action by
downloading a complete list of EBS Volumes in CSV format, facilitating thorough analysis and seamless
collaboration with your team via Jira.

With each EBS Volume, the Resource Detail button offers granular details such as region, resource ID, cost
implications, IOPS, size metrics, associated snapshots, tags, and more. This level of granularity allows you
to make more data-based informed decisions. With nOps Rules, you can easily spot unused EBS Volumes to
save costs and improve efficiency in your AWS workload.

Let us help you save! Sign up (https://app.nops.io/accounts/signup_user/) for nOps or Book a demo call
(https://www.nops.io/get-started/) today.

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