3 posts tagged with "CloudFormation"

In a previous post, we looked at how to use CloudFormation Macros to provide a simpler DSL around CloudFormation or to provide company-wide defaults around particular resources.

However, sometimes you need more than what CloudFormation currently offers. Perhaps CloudFormation doesn't have support for a resource that you need. Or maybe you want to use a third-party resource, like Auth0 or Algolia, in your application.

In this post, we'll learn about CloudFormation custom resources. Custom resources greatly expand what you can do with CloudFormation as you can run custom logic as part of your CloudFormation deployment.

In September 2018, AWS released CloudFormation Macros, a powerful addition to CloudFormation. Macros allow you to write your own mini-DSLs on top of CloudFormation, giving you the power to enforce organization-wide defaults or allow for more flexible syntax in your templates.

In this post, we'll cover the what, why, and how of CloudFormation macros. This post includes:

AWS CloudFormation is a powerful tool for provisioning resources in AWS. It allows you to describe your desired infrastructure in a configuration file, which can be checked into source control for easy review, automation, and tracking over time. You submit this configuration file to the CloudFormation service, which safely and reliably provisions your infrastructure.

One of the trickier aspects of CloudFormation is around its update mechanisms. Changing a property for an existing resource in your CloudFormation file can have drastic effects on your infrastructure, including replacing an existing piece of infrastructure by deleting the old one and creating a new one.