What CloudFormation Does ?

• Assume you have to deploy an application in AWS which needs

  • ec2 instance to be created
  • install necessary softwares
  • Open necessary security groups

• Possible options

  • manual
    • Create ec2 instance manually
    • deploy the application by logging into the ec2 instance
    • Open necessary ports
  • Scripting: Create a shell script which uses aws cli to
    • create ec2 instance
    • install necessary softwares
    • open selected ports

• We need to create multiple environments of the same application which involves

  • creating the application infra
  • deleting the application infra after use

• Lets see the following to use cloud formation

• Deleting the stack will delete all the resources created by cloudformation

• If we can have similar template for deploying our application developed, creating various environments will be simple

• We can deploy a cf template from command line as well which helps us in automating application deployment from CI/CD tools like jenkins

• To work with Cloud formation templates i.e creating templates we need to have the following skills

  • JSON/YAML format Refer Here for the JSON and YAML Tutorial
  • How to create the application/resources manually.

• Exercise: Try creating a single machine Lamp server using cloud formation template.

JSON or YAML

• Both JSON and YAML are used to represent data and they are collection of name value pairs
• In json the syntax of each name pair

<name>: <value>

• In yaml the syntax of each name value pair

<name>: <value>

• When we describe about any thing the value can be

  • Text
  • Number
  • Boolean
  • List
  • Complex i.e. this requires more name value pairs to describe

• JSON Way

  • Text:

  "name": "QualityThought"
  

  • Number

  "age": 11
  

  • Boolean

  "classroom": false
  "online": true
  

  • list

  "courses": ["AWS", "Azure", "DevOps", "Python", "Expert K8s"]
  

  • complex

  "address": {
      "flatno": "209-b",
      "building": "nilgiri",
      "area": "Ameerpet"
  }
  

  • Whole json

  {
    "name": "QualityThought",
    "age": 11,
    "offline": false,
    "courses": [ "AWS", "Azure", "DevOps", "Python", "DataScience", "QA" ],
    "address": {
      "flatno": "209-b",
      "building": "nilgiri",
      "area": "Ameerpet"
    }
  }
  

• YAML Way:

  • Text:

  name: QualityThought
  

  • Number

  age: 11
  

  • Boolean

  online: true
  online: yes
  classroom: no
  

  • list

  courses:
    - AWS
    - Azure
    - DevOps
    - Python
    - Expert k8s
  

  • complex:

  address:
    flatno: 209-b
    building: nilgiri
    area: ameerpet
  

  • Whole yaml

name: Quality Thought
age: 11
online: yes
offline: no
courses:
  - AWS
  - Azure
  - DevOps
  - Python
  - Expert k8s
address:
  flatno: 209-b
  building: nilgiri
  area: ameerpet