Day 2 - manage resource lifecycle
Managing the lifecycle of cloud resources is a critical aspect of platform engineering, often referred to as "Day 2 operations." After resources are provisioned—whether they're databases, compute instances, storage buckets, or Kubernetes namespaces—they require ongoing management to ensure reliability, security, and cost-effectiveness.
Day 2 tasks
Day 2 management includes tasks such as:
- Scaling resources up or down based on demand
- Patching and updating software or configurations
- Restarting or Resyncing to resolve issues
- Decommissioning or archiving resources when they're no longer needed
- Monitoring usage and health to detect issues early
- Rotating secrets and credentials to mitigate risks
- Identify Security Misconfigurations in your cloud environments
By automating these processes and providing self-service capabilities for Day 2 operations, platform teams empower developers to manage their own resources safely, while maintaining governance and compliance. Port enables you to define self-service actions for common Day 2 tasks, set up approval workflows, and enforce policies—ensuring that your cloud resources remain well-managed throughout their lifecycle.
Visualizing and tracking resources
The guides above focus on managing the lifecycle of resources, but below, we cover how to visualize those same resources, to simplify their tracking.
There are two main appraoches: