# SUS02-BP03 Stop the creation and maintenance of unused assets
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Decommission unused assets in your workload to reduce the number of cloud resources required to support your demand and minimize waste.

 **Common anti-patterns:** 
+  You do not analyze your application for assets that are redundant or no longer required. 
+  You do not remove assets that are redundant or no longer required. 

 **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** Removing unused assets frees resources and improves the overall efficiency of the workload. 

 **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Low 

## Implementation guidance
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 Unused assets consume cloud resources like storage space and compute power. By identifying and eliminating these assets, you can free up these resources, resulting in a more efficient cloud architecture. Perform regular analysis on application assets such as pre-compiled reports, datasets, static images, and asset access patterns to identify redundancy, underutilization, and potential decommission targets. Remove those redundant assets to reduce the resource waste in your workload. 

 **Implementation steps** 
+  Use monitoring tools to identify static assets that are no longer required. 
+  Before removing any asset, evaluate the impact of removing it on the architecture. 
+  Develop a plan and remove assets that are no longer required. 
+  Consolidate overlapping generated assets to remove redundant processing. 
+  Update your applications to no longer produce and store assets that are not required. 
+  Instruct third parties to stop producing and storing assets managed on your behalf that are no longer required. 
+  Instruct third parties to consolidate redundant assets produced on your behalf. 
+  Regularly review your workload to identify and remove unused assets. 

## Resources
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 **Related documents:** 
+  [Optimizing your AWS Infrastructure for Sustainability, Part II: Storage](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/optimizing-your-aws-infrastructure-for-sustainability-part-ii-storage/) 
+ [ How do I terminate active resources that I no longer need on my AWS account? ](https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/terminate-resources-account-closure/)

 **Related videos:** 
+ [ How do I check for and then remove active resources that I no longer need on my AWS account? ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqg9AqESRlg)