> This page is for Data Protection.

> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.eon.io/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.eon.io/_mcp/server.

# About Discovery

This article explains the basics of discovery and how it works in Eon.

**Discovery** is Eon's process for identifying new or updated resources that may need to be backed up.
During discovery, Eon uses your cloud provider's native APIs to retrieve a list of resources and their metadata.
The resources and their metadata are displayed in your inventory in Eon, giving you an overview of your resource statuses at a glance.

By default, Eon discovers all supported resources in your connected cloud accounts.
You can configure discovery to include or exclude specific resources based on conditions or manual selection.

> **Info**
>
> Discovered resources aren't automatically backed up until they're assigned to a [backup policy].

[backup policy]: /data-protection/backup-and-protection/backup-configuration/backup-policies/about-backup-policies

## How discovery works

Discovery operates through API requests to your cloud account to collect resource metadata.
The discovery process includes these steps:

* **Resource identification**: Eon scans your cloud account to identify all supported resources.

* **Metadata collection**: For each resource, Eon collects metadata such as resource name, ID, type, tags and labels, and existing non-Eon snapshots.
  Tags with the `eon:` or `eon-` prefix are excluded because Eon uses these prefixes for internal operations.

* **Inventory update**: The collected information is displayed in your Eon inventory, providing a comprehensive view of your cloud resources.

Discovery operates entirely through read-only API calls and doesn't impact the performance of your cloud resources.
The process retrieves only metadata and configuration information without accessing or modifying your actual workloads or data.

## Restored resources in discovery

When you restore compute and database resources to an AWS or GCP restore account that's also connected as a source account, those restored resources are discovered by default and included in your inventory.

Eon tags restored resources with `eon:restore` to identify them as restore outputs. Resources with this tag are included in discovery even if they also carry `eon:` or `eon-` tags that Eon uses for internal operations.

To exclude restored resources from your inventory, configure discovery to filter them out by adding this condition to your discovery configuration:
Tag keys **contains none of** `eon:restore`.

For instructions on configuring discovery conditions, see [Manage Discovery Configuration].

## Discovery configuration

You can customize which resources are discovered using discovery configuration settings.
This is useful for excluding temporary resources, focusing on specific workloads, or backing up only a portion of your account.

Common scenarios where you might want to configure discovery include:

* **Temporary resources**: Exclude ephemeral resources like auto-scaling instances or temporary storage that doesn't need backup protection.

* **Development environments**: Focus discovery on production resources while excluding development or testing environments.

* **Compliance requirements**: Include only resources that require backup for regulatory compliance.

* **Cost optimization**: Reduce discovery scope to focus on critical resources and minimize operational overhead.

* **Staged rollouts**: Gradually include resource types or regions as you expand your backup coverage.

For instructions, see [Manage Discovery Configuration].

### Excluding resources with conditions

If you want to conditionally exclude specific resources from discovery, you can use negative operators when setting up conditions.
This approach is useful when you want to discover most resources but exclude specific patterns or categories.

Some example conditions are:

| Goal                                | Condition                                                 |
| ----------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| Exclude CloudTrail resources        | Resource name **does not contain** `cloudtrail`           |
| Exclude development resource groups | Resource group **is not one of** `dev-group`              |
| Exclude temporary resources         | Tag keys **contains none of** `temporary`, `temp`, `test` |
| Exclude restored resources          | Tag keys **contains none of** `eon:restore`               |

These exclusion conditions work with the "Use conditions" method in dynamic resource selection.

## Additional information

* [About Backup Policies]
* [Manage Discovery Configuration]

[About Backup Policies]: /data-protection/backup-and-protection/backup-configuration/backup-policies/about-backup-policies

[Manage Discovery Configuration]: /data-protection/backup-and-protection/backup-configuration/discovery/manage-discovery-configuration