Harvesting Strategies

InsightCloudSec comes with many default harvesting strategies so your accounts are harvested automatically at a cadence we recommend without any additional configuration. If you want to add, manage, or explore the harvesting strategies available in your InsightCloudSec instance, you can do so on the Harvesting Strategy page.

Explore harvesting strategies

You can view all existing harvesting strategies on the Harvesting Strategy page. Only users with appropriate permissions can access Settings > Harvesting Strategies.

The following actions are available on the Harvesting Strategy page:

  • You can use the Cloud Provider filter to narrow the results or you can use the Search bar to find a particular harvesting strategy.
  • You can delete a harvesting strategy at any time by clicking Action (ellipsis) > Delete Strategy > Delete.
  • You can make a strategy the default for a given cloud provider by clicking Action (ellipsis) > Make Default > Make Default.

Create a harvesting strategy

If you would like to create a custom harvesting strategy for a particular cloud account or group of accounts, you can create a new one from the Harvesting Strategy page.

To create a new harvesting strategy:

  1. From the Harvesting Strategies page, click + New strategy.
  2. Enter a Strategy Name.
  3. Select a Cloud Provider from the drop-down menu. Only one cloud provider can be selected.
  4. Click Create.

The harvesting strategy is created with dynamic scheduling turned on. Dynamic scheduling means that harvesting job (also known as harvesters) frequency is dynamically determined based on the resources the selected cloud account has. For example: if an account has no compute instances associated with it, InsightCloudSec automatically adjusts the compute instance harvesting job to occur once every 24 hours. Explore modifying a strategy to adjust its regions, scheduling, and settings.

Modify a harvesting strategy

Modifying a harvesting strategy can consist of the following activities:

Configure a harvesting strategy

You can configure a harvesting strategy's job frequency globally (all regions) or per region. You can also configure a harvesting job's frequency if dynamic scheduling is not turned on. To pause region harvesting or toggle dynamic scheduling, you must edit the strategy instead.

To configure individual harvesters for a region:

  1. From the Harvesting Strategies page, click Action (ellipsis) > Configure Strategy next to the harvesting strategy you want to configure.
  2. Select the Region you want to edit. Global is the default selection and will override individual region settings.
  3. For each harvester you want to update the frequency override (use the search bar to filter the list):
    1. Click Add Override.
    2. Enter a new frequency in minutes noting the default setting.
    3. Click Apply.
  4. Save your changes:
    1. Optionally, if you edited a particular region (not global), you can click Save & Copy to Regions to also apply the frequency overrides to additional regions.
    2. If you only want your changes to apply to one region, click Save Changes.

To modify the frequency for an entire region:

  1. From the Harvesting Strategies page, click Action (ellipsis) > Configure Strategy next to the harvesting strategy you want to configure.
  2. Select the Region you want to edit. Global is the default selection and will override individual region settings.
  3. Select an option in the Modify Frequency drop-down menu:
    • Default Frequency - Sets all harvester frequencies to the default value for the region.
    • Daily Frequency - Sets all harvester frequencies to 1440 minutes (24 hours) for the region.
    • Custom - Sets all harvester frequencies to a value relative to the percentage selected from a slider (-2500% slower to +500% faster).
  4. Click Apply. If you're not happy with the changes, you can click Restore Defaults.
  5. Save your changes:
    1. Optionally, if you edited a particular region (not global), you can click Save & Copy to Regions to also apply the frequency overrides to additional regions.
    2. If you only want your changes to apply to one region, click Save Changes.
Assign a strategy

You can assign a strategy to cloud accounts from the Harvesting Strategies page instead of individually updating an account's settings.

To assign a strategy:

  1. From the Harvesting Strategies page, click Action (ellipsis) > Assign Strategy next to the harvesting strategy you want to configure.
  2. Use the Select Cloud Accounts drop-down to select cloud accounts to assign the strategy to.
  3. Optionally, select Assign Strategy to clouds with badges to show a Select Badges drop-down menu where you can select cloud badges to apply the strategy to all cloud accounts with a selected badge.
  4. Click Assign. If a cloud account already had a strategy, it will be overridden.
Edit a strategy

You can edit a strategy to change its name, toggle dynamic scheduling, pause harvesting regions (AWS only), or mark resources in disabled regions for deletion (AWS only).

To edit a strategy:

  1. From the Harvesting Strategies page, click Action (ellipsis) > Edit Strategy next to the harvesting strategy you want to configure.
  2. Toggle dynamic scheduling using the Enable Dynamic Scheduling checkbox.
  3. For AWS harvesting strategies;
    1. Optionally, update the Select Regions drop-down menu with regions to pause harvesting for.
    2. Optionally, select the Mark disabled regions Resources for deletion checkbox.
  4. Click Save.