AWS CloudFormation is an infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that enables you to model your AWS resources as JSON and YAML code. Using AWS CloudFormation enables you to deploy infrastructure in a safe and efficient way.

Learning Objectives

The course starts with an overview of AWS CloudFormation and includes several hands-on labs to get an understanding of how the service is used. As a result, you will learn:

What AWS CloudFormation is
The benefits of AWS CloudFormation
The components of a CloudFormation template,
How to create a template,
How to deploy a template
How to develop continuous integration and continuous deployment with CloudFormation
How to tie into CloudFormation system events via SNS for operational tasks
How to nest multiple levels of CloudFormation stacks to build out massive cloud systems
How to author CloudFormation Custom Resources to add additional functionality and resource types to stacks
What AWS CloudFormation Guard Is
AWS CloudFormation Guard rule syntax.
How to use CloudFormation Guard.
How to validate your templates against Guard rules.
How to validate a template using the AWS command-line interface
How to use a command-line tool to format a template
How to use tooling to identify potential security issues with a template
How to use the AWS CFN Policy Validator to analyze policies embedded in a template
How to detect unmanaged resource updates with AWS CloudFormation Drift Detection
How to create an AWS Lambda function that remediates drifted resource configurations
How to schedule automatic drift detection and remediation with an Amazon EventBridge Schedule
How to configure an Apache server on an Amazon EC2 instance using cfn-init
How to signal to AWS CloudFormation when the instance configuration process has been completed using cfn-signal

Prerequisites:

To get the most out of this course, you should have basic knowledge of the AWS platform. It also helps to have some familiarity with some of the core AWS services such as Amazon S3, AWS IAM, Amazon EC2, and Amazon VPC. It will also help to understand the basics of JSON, YAML, the Git source-control system, and the Bash command line.

Feedback:

If you have any feedback on this course, positive or negative, please send an e-mail to support@cloudacademy.com

About the Author

Alana Layton, opens in a new tab

Sr. AWS Content Creator

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Alana Layton is an experienced technical trainer, technical content developer, and cloud engineer living out of Seattle, Washington. Her career has included teaching about AWS all over the world, creating AWS content that is fun, and working in consulting. She currently holds six AWS certifications. Outside of Cloud Academy, you can find her testing her knowledge in bar trivia, reading, or training for a marathon.