AWS CloudFormation

• use templates to operate AWS resources
  • create resources
  • update resources
  • delete resources

Template example (note that in practice, two spaces should be used as indentation instead of 4 spaces or tabs)

AWSTemplateFormationVersion: "version date"
Description:
    ...
 
# Control order, grouping of resources in UI
# Also have other configuration purposes
Metadata: 
    ...
 
# Prompt for user inputs, can configure valid values as well
Parameters:
    ...
 
# Configure look-up tables
Mappings:
    ...
 
# Define conditions that can be used elsewhere
#     to determine whether a resource will be 
#     created
Conditions:
    ...
 
Transforms:
    ...
 
# List of resources being created
Resources:
    Instance:
        Type: 'AWS::EC2::Instance'
        Properties:
            ...
        Metadata:
            ...
    ...
 
# Present output like instance ID or IP address
Outputs:
    ...

• Using a template creates a stack which maps a logical resource in template to a physical resource (e.g. actual EC2 instance). If the template is updated, the stack can also be updated accordingly.
• Template file can be uploaded to AWS console, which creates a S3 bucket for that file with a name starting with cf-