Tagging
OCI Tagging allows you to assign key:value pairs to resources and use them to organize and list resources based on requirements. Tag your resources so that you can more effectively identify them. Doing so will further enable cost-tracking and assist with access control.
There are two ways for you to add tags to resources. Each approach offers a different type of tag for you to work with:
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Defined tags – tag administrators manage resource metadata.
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Free-form tags – unmanaged metadata applied to resources by users (these are out of scope for this document)
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Cost tracking tags – special form of Defined tags (deprecated but still relevant for budgeting)
Cost tracking is possible on all defined tags. Cost tracking tags are now only relevant for use with Budgets, and that limitation is planned to be removed.
Tags are grouped into Tag Namespaces, which are a container for tag keys. They consist of a name and zero or more tag key definitions. Tag namespaces are not case sensitive and must be unique across the tenancy. The namespace is also a natural grouping to which administrators can apply policy. One policy on the tag namespace applies to all the tag definitions contained within that namespace.
There is a default Tag Namespace Oracle-Tags with two Key Definitions:
- CreatedBy (The name of the principal that created the resource)
- CreatedOn (The date and time that the resource was created).
CreatedBy is also defined as Cost Tracking Tag. The default Tag Namespace can be changed or deleted if necessary.
Below are some service limitations concerning using tags:
- Tags per tenancy: unlimited
- Tags per resource: 10 free-form tags and 64 defined tags
- Total tag data size: 5 K (JSON). The total tag data size includes all tag data for a single resource (all applied tags and tag values). Sizing is per UTF-8.
- Number of pre-defined values for a tag key: 100 per list
Important:
Tags are a global resource like compartments and not bound to a specific country, region, or availability zone. This is important to consider if you plan analysis and cost tracking in the dimension of location or country.