Amazon SSM

Amazon Web Services

Overview

Integrates with AWS Systems Manager (SSM) to inventory the managed instances registered with SSM across the configured AWS accounts and regions. A managed instance is any EC2 instance or hybrid/on-premises machine running the SSM Agent. For each managed instance the connector captures its agent state, platform, connectivity (ping) status, and IAM role, and emits one Brinqa object per instance.

Data retrieved from Amazon SSM

Connector Object	Required	Maps to Data Model
SSM Managed Instance	Yes	Cloud Resource

note

For detailed steps on how to view the data retrieved from Amazon SSM in the Brinqa Platform, see How to view your data.

Setup

Connection settings

When setting up a data integration, select Amazon SSM from the Connector dropdown and provide the following:

Setting	Required	Default	Description
Access key ID	No	—	AWS user access key ID, if not specified, the connector consults the default credentials provider chain to try and determine the \
Secret access key	No	—	AWS user secret access key, if not specified, the connector consults the default credentials provider chain to try and determine the \
Default region	No	—	Default AWS region, if not specified, the connector consults the default region provider chain to try and determine the region to use.
Assume role	No	—	Amazon Resource Name for the role to assume.
Session duration	No	900	Assume role session duration in seconds.
Page size	No	100	The maximum number of results to retrieve per operation.

Authentication

Authentication is shared across the AWS connector bundle via the AwsConfiguration base class. The Systems Manager sub-connector uses the AWS SDK for Java v2 SsmClient, which signs every request with AWS SigV4 using credentials resolved through the following chain (in order):

1. STS AssumeRole — if assumeRoleARN is configured, the connector assumes that role (using the credentials below as the principal) and uses the resulting temporary session credentials.
2. Static access keys — if accessKey / secretKey are configured, they are used directly.
3. Default credentials provider chain — environment variables, ~/.aws/credentials, container role, or EC2 instance metadata.

Assumed-role sessions use the configurable sessionDuration (default 900 s) with a unique session name per sync. assumeRoleARN may be a comma-separated list to sync multiple accounts in one run. An SsmClient is constructed per role per region and closed when its region has been fully synced.

Required AWS API permissions

Permission	Purpose
ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation	List and page through SSM managed instances in a region
sts:AssumeRole	Only when assumeRoleARN is set

How to obtain Amazon SSM credentials

Create an IAM user for AWS access

For the Amazon SSM connector to interact with the AWS SDK and retrieve managed instance data, you must provide specific AWS credentials and permissions. To create an IAM user, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your organization's AWS Management Console as an administrator.

2. Navigate to the Identity and Access Management (IAM) dashboard.

3. From the navigation pane under Access management, click Users, and then click Create user.

4. Provide a User name, leave the Provide user access to AWS Management Console option unchecked, and then click Next.

5. Click the Attach policies directly option and then click Create policy.

6. Click the JSON tab and paste the following minimum required policy:

   {
     "Version": "2012-10-17",
     "Statement": [
       {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": [
           "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation"
         ],
         "Resource": "*"
       }
     ]
   }

7. Click Next, provide a name for the policy, and then click Create policy.

8. Back on the Add permissions page, search for and select the policy you just created, and then click Next.

9. Click Create user.

Note: If you do not have permissions to create a new IAM user, contact your AWS administrator. For additional information, see AWS documentation.

Data & mappings

Attribute mappings

Expand the sections below to view the mappings between the source and the Brinqa data model attributes:

SSM Managed Instance

Source Field Name	SDM Attribute
constant "AWS"	CLOUD_PROVIDER
derived: "Online".equalsIgnoreCase(pingStatusAsString)	IS_ONLINE
InstanceInformation.agentVersion	AGENT_VERSION
InstanceInformation.computerName	COMPUTER_NAME
InstanceInformation.computerName (fallback instanceId, then the composite UID)	NAME
InstanceInformation.iamRole	IAM_ROLE
InstanceInformation.instanceId	INSTANCE_ID
InstanceInformation.ipAddress	IP_ADDRESSES
InstanceInformation.isLatestVersion	IS_LATEST_VERSION
InstanceInformation.lastPingDateTime	LAST_SEEN
InstanceInformation.pingStatusAsString	SOURCE_STATUS
InstanceInformation.pingStatusAsString	PING_STATUS
InstanceInformation.platformName	PLATFORM_NAME
InstanceInformation.platformName	OPERATING_SYSTEM
InstanceInformation.platformTypeAsString	PLATFORM_TYPE
InstanceInformation.platformVersion	PLATFORM_VERSION
InstanceInformation.resourceTypeAsString	RESOURCE_TYPE
region + : + InstanceInformation.instanceId	UID
sync region	REGION
sync timestamp	LAST_CAPTURED

Operations & API

Operations & API

Expand each connector object to see its operation options, delta-sync behavior, and the API it uses. See connector operation options for how to apply operation options (keys and values are case-sensitive).

SSM Managed Instance

Operation options

Option	Type	Default	Description
region / regions	Comma-separated list of regions to query (one client per region). regions takes precedence over region.	Resolved from configuration / region provider chain
pageSize	Requested page size; effective page size is min(pageSize, 50).	Shared pageSize configuration (100) → capped at 50
parallelismLevel	Number of parallel worker threads.	min(4, CPU cores)	No

Delta sync

The connector README does not document sync behavior for this object.

API

• Type: AWS SDK for Java v2 (SsmClient) · Endpoint: ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation

Changelog

Changelog

The Amazon SSM connector has undergone the following changes:

Version	Description	Migration Steps
3.2.1	No changes in this release.	N/A
3.2.0	No changes in this release.	N/A
3.1.0	New Features - New connector — syncs SSM-managed instances (a lateral-movement signal for blast-radius analysis). Improvements - Sync failures are now visible. Previously, certain AWS API errors (throttling, server errors, transient network failures, validation errors) could be silently swallowed during multi-region sync, producing empty results without indicating a problem. These now surface as sync failures with a clear log entry detailing the HTTP status, AWS error code, request id, and service name. Per-region permission gaps (HTTP 401 / 403) still allow the sync to continue across other regions, but are now visible in logs.	N/A