# SUS02-BP03 Stop the creation and maintenance of unused assets
SUS02-BP03 Stop the creation and maintenance of unused assets

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
Implementation guidance

 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
Implementation steps
+  **Conduct an inventory:** Conduct a comprehensive inventory to identify all assets within your workload. 
+  **Analyze usage:** Use continuous monitoring to identify static assets that are no longer required. 
+  **Remove unused assets:** Develop a plan to remove assets that are no longer required. 
  +  Before removing any asset, evaluate the impact of removing it on the architecture. 
  +  Consolidate overlapping generated assets to remove redundant processing. 
  +  Update your applications to no longer produce and store assets that are not required. 
+  **Communicate with third parties:** Instruct third parties to stop producing and storing assets managed on your behalf that are no longer required. Ask to consolidate redundant assets. 
+  **Use lifecycle policies:** Use lifecycle policies to automatically delete unused assets. 
  +  You can use [Amazon S3 Lifecycle](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/object-lifecycle-mgmt.html) to manage your objects throughout their lifecycle. 
  +  You can use [Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ebs/latest/userguide/snapshot-lifecycle.html) to automate the creation, retention, and deletion of Amazon EBS snapshots and Amazon EBS-backed AMIs. 
+  **Review and optimize:** Regularly review your workload to identify and remove any unused assets. 

## Resources
Resources

 **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:** 
+ [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Sustainable architecture: Past, present, and future ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xpUQ-Q4QcM)
+ [AWS re:Invent 2022 - Preserving and maximizing the value of digital media assets using Amazon S3 ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OI0Uu-YvD8)
+ [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Optimize costs in your multi-account environments ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie_Mqb-eC4A)