Google Cloud Asset Inventory
Google Cloud Asset Inventory is a service that provides a comprehensive view of all Google Cloud resources and policies in an organization. It allows users to discover, monitor, and analyze assets across projects and folders, enabling better governance, security, and compliance management. The service exports asset metadata to BigQuery for querying and integrates with other Google Cloud tools for automated workflows.
Developers should use Google Cloud Asset Inventory when managing large-scale cloud environments to gain visibility into resource configurations, track changes over time, and enforce security policies. It is particularly useful for auditing compliance (e.g., with regulations like GDPR or HIPAA), detecting misconfigurations, and automating asset management tasks in DevOps pipelines.