Insights

Insights highlight optimization opportunities across your cloud environment.

Overview

The Insights page provides a centralized view of all detected issues across your environment.

Insights can also be explored in the canvas, where they are visualized per architecture for better contextual understanding.

Insight details include context, impact, and recommended mitigation steps, helping teams prioritize and take action efficiently.

Insights table

Insights status tabs

Insights are grouped by workflow status for quick navigation:

Tab Description
All insights
Displays all insights.
Open
Newly detected issues requiring attention.
In progress
Issues currently being addressed.
Closed
Resolved or dismissed issues.

Filtering table insights

  1. On the Insights page, click Filter in the table
  2. Apply filters to refine which insights are shown on the canvas
  3. Active filters appear as filter chips
  4. Click the close button on a chip to remove an applied filter
  5. Click Clear to remove all applied filters

Export Insights (CSV)

On the Insights page, click Export CSV to export insights as a CSV file to share findings or use them in external workflows. The export includes key insight metadata and attributes.

Insights on canvas

Search canvas insights

Search for specific insights by name. Matching insights will be highlighted on the canvas, with typed terms emphasized for quick identification.

Filter canvas insights

  1. On the canvas, click Insights in the toolbar or press I on your keyboard
  2. Click the filter button next to the search field
  3. Apply filters to refine which insights are shown on the canvas
  4. Active filters appear as filter chips
  5. Remove a filter by clicking the close button on a chip

Insight properties

Treatment

A treatment strategy can be chosen to determine how an insight is handled by your team:

Strategy Description
  Undecided No decision has been made.
  Mitigate Actions are taken to reduce or resolve the issue.
  Transfer Responsibility is shifted (e.g. to a third party.
  Accept The risk is acknowledged and accepted.
  Avoid The underlying cause is eliminated.

Status

Status reflects the current progress of an insight and can be updated:

Status Description
  Open The insight has not yet been acted on or has been reopened.
  In progress The insight is being addressed.
  Closed The issue is resolved or dismissed.
Insights can be closed manually with a required reason, or automatically by Dawnguard when the issue is no longer detected.

Assignees

Assign one or more team members to an insight.
Assignees are responsible for addressing the issue and will be notified of updates.

Affected area

Indicates which resource or part of the architecture is impacted by the insight.

Impact

Impact scoring

Each insight is assigned an impact level, indicating its potential risk or implication:

Impact Description
High impact.
Medium impact.
Low impact.
No impact.

Pillars

Architecture Insights help cloud architects design secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructures by applying the pillars of the AWS and Azure Well-Architected Frameworks.

The pillars represent the core principles that guide the evaluation and improvement of published architectures or reviewed architecture designs. They form the foundation of how Dawnguard analyzes and generates insights, enabling teams to collaborate around clear architectural priorities and maintain consistency across designs.

Each pillar focuses on a key aspect of system quality:

Pillar Description
Operational Excellence
Ensuring architecture designs support efficient
operations, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
Security
Protecting data, components, and integrations
through secure design and governance.
Reliability
Designing systems that are resilient and
can recover quickly from disruptions.
Performance
Optimizing resources to ensure
scalable and responsive designs.
Cost
Managing architectural choices to
maximize value and minimize unnecessary spend.
Sustainability
Promoting environmentally conscious
design and efficient resource usage.

Mitigation steps

Mitigation steps guide the user in resolving the insight.

Steps can be checked off as they are completed.

When the final step is checked, the insight is closed and a closing reason must be provided.

Timeline

Timeline events

The timeline displays a history of all events related to the insight, including:

  • Insights found with a certain impact score
  • Treatment updates
  • Status updates
  • Assignee updates

Commenting

On the bottom of the timeline, team members can add comments to collaborate, share context, and track progress directly on the insight.

Insight actions

Copy URL

Only members who are part of a team with access to the relevant scope can view the insight.

Click Copy insight URL in the Insight detail page header to copy a direct link for easy sharing.

Show in architecture

Click Show in architecture in the Insight detail page header to view the insight on the architecture canvas.