Infrastructure as Code - Reusable Templates

Reuseable Templates

• Nested Stacks and Cross-Stack References can be used to modularize stack templates
• Nested Stacks create a parent-child relationship between the two stacks
  • each time you create a stack from the parent template, a new child stack is created
• Nested stacks allow sharing sharing infrastructure code across projects, while keeping the stacks completely separate
• Cross-Stack References allow a stack to export values that other stacks can import
  • promotes service-oriented model with loose coupling
  • allows sharing single set of resources across multiple projects

Template Linting

• CloudFormation provides the ValidateTemplate API
  • checks for proper JSON or YAML syntax

Summary

• Information Resource Lifecycle starts with provisioning of resources
  • CloudFormation is a template-based way of creating resources and dependencies
  • Allows maintaining infrastructure the same way as version-controlled source code