Skip to main content

DOP-C02 CloudFormation

Infrastructure as Code

  • Same concept as K8S
  • Each resources is tagged, so can be easily tracked in cost management
  • Saving strategy: automatically delete the DEV env at 5pm and recreate at 8am
  • Automated generate of infrastructure diagram
  • Separation of concerns
    • VPC stack
    • Network stack
    • App stack
  • Leverage existing templates on the web
  • Templates must be uploaded to S3 as CloudFormation only reads from S3
  • Delete the stack will delete everything created by that stack
  • we can manually upload the new template, or use AWS CLI or CD tool to upload the template file

CloudFormation Components

  • AWSTemplateFormatVersion
    • identifies the capabilities of the template “2010-09-09”
  • Description
    • comments about the template
  • Resources (MANDATORY)
    • your AWS resources declared in the template
    • Documentations: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/TemplateReference/aws-template-resource-type-ref.html
    • form: service-provider::service-name::data-type-name
  • Parameters
    • the dynamic inputs for your template
    • Parameters:
  SecurityGroupDescription:
    Description: Security Group Description
    Type: String
    AllowedValues:
      - Value1
      - Value2
    Default: Value1
    NoEcho: true
    • AllowedValues, NoEcho
  • Mappings
    • the static variables for your template
    • hardcoded within the template
    • use Fn::FindInMap or !FindInMap to return a named value from a specific key
    • Mappings:
  Mapping01:
    Key01:
      Name: Value01
    Key02:
      Name: Value02
    Key03:
      Name: Value03
  RegionMap:
    us-east-1:
      HVM64: ami-123
      HVMG2: ami-456
Resources
  MyEC2Instance
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: !FindInMap [RegionMap, !Ref "AWS::Region", HVM64]
      InstanceType: t2.micro
  • Outputs
    • references to what has been created
    • optional values that we can import into other stacks (if export it)
    • ex). VPC_ID from a VPC Stack
    • Outputs:
  StackSSHSecurityGroup:
    Description: The SSH Security Group for our Company
    Value: !Ref MyCompanyWideSSHSecurityGroup
    Export:
      Name: SSHSecurityGroup
    • To import this value from another stack:
    • Resources:
  MySecureInstance:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: ami-08123
      InstanceType: t2.micro
      AvailabilityZone: us-east-1a
      SecurityGroups:
        - !ImportValue SSHSecurityGroup
  • Conditionals
    • list of conditions to perform resource creation
    • used to control the creation of resources or outputs based on a condition
    • Conditions:
  CreateProdResources: !Equals [ !Ref EnvType, prod ]
Resources:
  MountPoint:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VolumeAttachment
    Condition: CreateProdResources
    • Fn::And, Fn::Equals, Fn::If, Fn::Not, Fn::Or

CloudFormation Helpers

  • References
    • Fn::Ref or !Ref
    • Resources:
  DBSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref MyVPC
  • Functions
    • Fn::Ref or !Ref
      • references parameters or resources
      • Resources:
  DBSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref MyVPC
    • Fn::GetAtt 
      • Resources:
  EC2Instance:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: ami-1234
      InstanceType: t2.micro
  EBSVolume:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Volume
    Condition: CreateProdResources
    Properties:
      Size: 100
      AvailabilityZone: !GetAtt EC2Instance.AvailabilityZone
    • Fn::FindInMap
    • Fn::ImportValue
    • Fn::Join
    • Fn::Sub
    • Fn::ForEach
    • Fn::ToJsonString
    • Fn::Base64
    • Fn::Cidr
    • Fn::GetAZs
    • Fn::Select
    • Fn::Split
    • Fn::Transform
    • Fn::Length
    • Condition Functions from above

CloudFormation ResourcesPseudo Parameters

  • enabled by default

CloudFormation - Rollbacks

  • For stack creation:
    • default: everything rolls back (gets deleted)
    • option to disable rollback and trouble shoot what happened
  • For stack update:
    • default: previous known working state
    • ability to see in the log
  • If rollback failed:
    • fix resources manually, then issue ContinueUpdateRollback API from console or CLI

CloudFormation - Service Role

Back to top