Finding type glossary

Plain-English definitions for all 13 Parsivex waste finding types, grouped by AWS category.

Last updated July 4, 2026

Parsivex scans your AWS account for 13 types of waste. Each finding type below links to a dedicated article explaining what triggers the flag, how to fix it, and typical savings ranges.

Titles and short descriptions match what you see on finding cards in your scan reports.

Compute

Finding typeWhat it means
Idle EC2 instanceAn EC2 instance with very low CPU utilization that can be stopped or terminated.
Over-provisioned Lambda memoryA Lambda function allocated more memory than its invocation metrics justify.
Oversized EC2 instanceAn EC2 instance running on a larger instance type than its workload requires.
Reserved Instance opportunityStable compute usage that could save money with Reserved Instance or Savings Plan pricing.

Storage

Finding typeWhat it means
Incomplete multipart uploadsAborted S3 multipart uploads still consuming storage with no lifecycle rule to clean them up.
Orphaned EBS snapshotAn EBS snapshot with no associated volume or AMI still incurring storage charges.
Orphaned EBS volumeAn unattached EBS volume still incurring storage charges.
S3 wrong storage classAn S3 bucket without lifecycle rules to transition infrequently accessed objects to cheaper tiers.

Database

Finding typeWhat it means
Over-provisioned DynamoDB capacityA DynamoDB table on provisioned billing whose consumed capacity is a small fraction of what is provisioned.
Over-provisioned RDS instanceAn RDS database running on a larger instance class than its workload requires.

Networking

Finding typeWhat it means
NAT Gateway overuseHigh NAT Gateway data-processing charges that could be reduced with VPC endpoints.
Unused Elastic IPAn allocated Elastic IP address not associated with a running instance.

Compute & networking

Finding typeWhat it means
Idle load balancerA load balancer with no healthy targets or near-zero traffic still incurring hourly charges.

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