Written by Carlos Requena
on 

[AWS] Naming Conventions Best Practices

"Our true nationality is mankind." --H. G. Wells

AWS Naming Conventions Best Practices

A naming convention is a well-defined set of rules useful for choosing the name of an AWS resource. Ensure that your AWS resources are using appropriate naming conventions for tagging in order to manage them more efficiently and adhere to AWS resource tagging best practices.

Naming (tagging) your AWS resources consistently have several advantages such as providing additional information about the resource location and usage, promoting consistency within the selected AWS region, distinguishing fast similar resources stacks from one another, avoiding naming collisions, improving clarity in cases of potential ambiguity and enhancing aesthetic and professional appearance.

Default Pattern Components

Region Code
(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)

Availability Zone Code
([1-2]{1})([a-c]{1})

Environment Code
(dev|test|stg|prod)

Application Code
([a-z0-9\-]+)

Subnet Route Code
(public|private)

VPC Naming Conventions

Default Pattern Format

vpc-RegionCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationStackCode

RegExp

^vpc-(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)-(dev|test|stg|prod)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$

Examples

vpc-us-east-1-prod-big-data-app-stack
vpc-us-west-2-prod-web-app-stack

Subnet Naming Conventions

Default Pattern Format
subnet-RegionCode-AvailabilityZoneCode-SubnetRouteCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationStackCode

RegExp
^subnet-(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)-([1-2]{1})([a-c]{1})-(public|private)-(dev|test|stg|prod)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$

Examples
subnet-us-east-1-2a-public-prod-web-app-stack
subnet-us-west-1-2b-private-prod-database-stack

Security Group Naming Conventions

Default Pattern Format
security-group-RegionCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationCode

RegExp
^security-group-(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)-(dev|test|stg|prod)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$

Examples
security-group-us-west-1-dev-ec2-instance-1

EC2 Instance Naming Conventions

Default Pattern Format
ec2-RegionCode-AvailabilityZoneCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationCode

RegExp
^ec2-(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)-([1-2]{1})([a-c]{1})-(dev|test|stg|prod)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$

Examples
ec2-us-east-1-2a-prod-tomcat
ec2-us-west-1-2b-prod-nodejs

PEM Key Naming Conventions

Default Pattern Format
key-RegionCode-EnvironmentCode-ApplicationCode

RegExp
^key-(us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|eu-central-1|ap-northeast-1|ap-northeast-2|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|sa-east-1)-(dev|test|stg|prod)-([a-z0-9\-]+)$

Examples
key-us-east-1-prod-web-server
key-us-west-1-prod-database


References