Book Image

Mastering AWS CloudFormation

By : Karen Tovmasyan
Book Image

Mastering AWS CloudFormation

By: Karen Tovmasyan

Overview of this book

DevOps and the cloud revolution have forced software engineers and operations teams to rethink how to manage infrastructures. With this AWS book, you'll understand how you can use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to simplify IT operations and manage the modern cloud infrastructure effectively with AWS CloudFormation. This comprehensive guide will help you explore AWS CloudFormation from template structures through to developing complex and reusable infrastructure stacks. You'll then delve into validating templates, deploying stacks, and handling deployment failures. The book will also show you how to leverage AWS CodeBuild and CodePipeline to automate resource delivery and apply continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices to the stack. As you advance, you'll learn how to generate templates on the fly using macros and create resources outside AWS with custom resources. Finally, you'll improve the way you manage the modern cloud in AWS by extending CloudFormation using AWS serverless application model (SAM) and AWS cloud development kit (CDK). By the end of this book, you'll have mastered all the major AWS CloudFormation concepts and be able to simplify infrastructure management.

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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Code in Action
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
1
Section 1: CloudFormation Internals
Section 1: CloudFormation Internals
Free Chapter
2
CloudFormation Refresher
CloudFormation Refresher
Technical requirements
Understanding the internals of AWS CloudFormation
Creating your first stack
Understanding CloudFormation IAM permissions
Drift detection
Summary
Questions
Further reading
3
Advanced Template Development
Advanced Template Development
Technical requirements
Going through the internals of the template
Creating reusable templates
Using conditional elements
Deletion policies
Referring to existing stacks
AWS pseudo parameters
Dynamic references with Parameter Store and Secrets Manager
Summary
Questions
Further reading
4
Section 2: Provisioning and Deployment at Scale
Section 2: Provisioning and Deployment at Scale
5
Validation, Linting, and Deployment of the Stack
Validation, Linting, and Deployment of the Stack
Technical requirements
Validating the template
Using a linter for best practices on templates
Provisioning our stack
Handling errors
Working with drifts
Summary
Questions
Further reading
6
Continuous Integration and Deployment
Continuous Integration and Deployment
Technical requirements
Including a template in your application
Running smoke tests on your stack
Best practices for the release management of CloudFormation stacks
Creating a CI/CD pipeline with CloudFormation and CodePipeline
Summary
Questions
Further reading
7
Deploying to Multiple Regions and Accounts Using StackSets
Deploying to Multiple Regions and Accounts Using StackSets
Technical requirements
The old-fashioned way of multi-regional and multi-account infrastructure management
Introducing StackSets
Deploying to multiple regions
Best practices for StackSets
Deploying to multiple accounts
Preventing failures of multiple StackSet deployments using TAGs
Summary
Questions
Further reading
8
Configuration Management of the EC2 Instances Using cfn-init
Configuration Management of the EC2 Instances Using cfn-init
Technical requirements
Introducing cfn-init
Deploying your application to EC2 during stack creation
Using cfn-signal to inform CloudFormation about resource readiness
Summary
Questions
Further reading
9
Section 3: Extending CloudFormation
Section 3: Extending CloudFormation
10
Creating Resources outside AWS Using Custom Resources
Creating Resources outside AWS Using Custom Resources
Technical requirements
Understanding custom resources
The internals of the underlying Lambda function
Writing and managing your own custom resource
Handling updates, deletions, and failures of CRs
Summary
Questions
Further reading
11
Dynamically Rendering the Template Using Template Macros
Dynamically Rendering the Template Using Template Macros
Technical requirements
Understanding the use cases of the template macro
Introducing the template macro
Writing your own macro
Summary
Questions
Further reading
12
Generating CloudFormation Templates Using AWS CDK
Generating CloudFormation Templates Using AWS CDK
Technical requirements
Introducing AWS CDK
Facilitating template development with AWS CDK
Writing your first template using AWS CDK and Python
Summary
Questions
Further reading
13
Deploying Serverless Applications Using AWS SAM
Deploying Serverless Applications Using AWS SAM
Technical requirements
Introducing AWS SAM
Understanding the differences between SAM and CloudFormation
Writing your first serverless application with SAM
Summary
Questions
Further reading
14
What's Next?
What's Next?
The future of infrastructure as code
Understanding the difference between Terraform and CloudFormation
Understanding the value of Cloud Development Kit
Summary
Further reading
15
Assessments
Chapter 1: CloudFormation Refresher
Chapter 2: Advanced Template Development
Chapter 3: Validation, Linting, and Deployment of the Stack
Chapter 4: Continuous Integration and Deployment
Chapter 5: Deploying to Multiple Regions and Accounts Using StackSets
Chapter 6: Configuration Management of the EC2 Instances Using cfn-init
Chapter 7: Creating Resources outside AWS Using Custom Resources
Chapter 8: Dynamically Rendering the Template Using Template Macros
Chapter 9: Generating CloudFormation Templates Using AWS CDK
Chapter 10: Deploying Serverless Applications Using AWS SAM
16
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To get the most out of this book

In order to write and test the code in this book, you will need a Linux, macOS, or Windows machine with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). You will need AWS CLI, Python, and obviously an AWS account. You can use any IDE or code editor you prefer. To write the code for this book, I used JetBrains PyCharm and Visual Studio Code, since they have nice plugins for CloudFormation.

For the CDK and SAM, you will additionally need Docker, Homebrew, and Node package manager (NPM).

All code examples were written on macOS, but they can easily run on a Linux system or WSL.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copy/pasting of code.

Keep in mind that using CloudFormation on AWS is free but you will pay for the resources it creates. In the book, I tried to use the smallest amount of resources possible (such as t2.micro instances), but always pay attention to your AWS account and don't forget to delete the stack and other resources once you are done practicing.

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