Slides from the AWS-Atlanta meetup on using CloudFormation from 01/22/2014

1. AWS CloudFormation
From basic instance to AutoScale with extras

2. What is Cloud Formation
Presented by Adam Book
from
Find me on LinkedIn

3. What is CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation is a way to create and
manage a group of AWS Resources in a
templated fashion.

4. What is CloudFormation
Templates are written in JSON and can be
moved from Region to Region.
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EC2
EBS
Elastic Load Balancers
Elastic IP Addresses
Auto Scaling Groups
EC2 Security Groups
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VPC Creation
Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets
Cloud Watch Alarms
AWS Identity & Access Management Policies
Much More

5. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description
Parameters
Mappings
Resources
Outputs

6. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description - Template parameters hold a
Parameters value and contain a list of
attributes that define its value.
Mappings
Resources
They are used in conjunction with
Fn::GetAtt in the Resources section
Outputs

7. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description
Parameters Mappings
Resources
Outputs
Template parameters hold a
value and contain a list of
attributes that define its value.
They are used in conjunction with
Fn::GetAtt in the Resources section

8. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description
Parameters
Mappings Resources
Outputs
Mappings tell the template
which base AMI to use in which
region.
Mappings can be used in
conjunction parameters to ensure
that Regional settings are met.

9. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description
Parameters
Mappings
Resources Outputs
This is where your EC2
instances, S3 buckets, ELB’s and
any other type of resources go.

10. CloudFormation templates
A basic Template contains 5 Sections
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Description
Parameters
Mappings
Resources
Outputs -
Return values produced by the
template once launce is
successfully completed.

11. CloudFormation templates
A bare bones Example:
{
"AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "version date",
"Description" : "Valid JSON strings up to 4K",
"Parameters" : {
keys and values
},
"Mappings" : {
keys and values
},
"Resources" : {
keys and values
},
"Outputs" : {
keys and values
}
}

12. Build from Examples
AWS already has lots of example templates ready for
you to look at and build from.
http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-templates/

13. Tools to help you validate
As you modify and customize the templates the json
can get complex.
http://www.jsoneditoronline.org/
OR
http://jsonlint.com/

14. Launching a Template
To Launch a new Template click the Create New Stack button
We’ll use the EC2InstanceWithSecurityGroupsSample.template as our base

15. Launching a Template

16. Using Parameters

17. Launch

18. Tracking the Launch

19. View the template in CF Portal

20. Update the template

21. Trouble Shooting
Look at message of why CREATE FAILED