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CloudFormation Flashcards

1
Q

What is CloudFormation?

A

CloudFormation is a declarative way of outlining your AWS Infrastructure, for any resources (most of them are supported).

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2
Q

In what order does CloudFormation create the resources defined in the stack?

A

The order in the file is not important. CloudFormation creates the resources for you in the right order with the exact configuration that you specify

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3
Q

What is provided by CloudFormation to help you with cost insights?

A

Each resource within the stack is tagged with an identifier so you can easily see how much a stack costs you

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4
Q

What saving strategy can you use in CloudFormation?

A

In Dev i.e., you could automation deletion of templates at 5 PM and recreated at 8 AM, safely

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5
Q

Where are CloudFormation templates stored?

A

In S3

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6
Q

What you need to do to update a CloudFormation template?

A

To update a template, we can’t edit previous ones. We have to reupload a new version of the template to AWS

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7
Q

What happens when you delete a CloudFormation stack?

A

Deleting a stack deletes every single artifact that was created by CloudFormation

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8
Q

What are the CloudFormation template components?

A
  • Resources
  • Parameters
  • Mappings
  • Outputs
  • Conditionals
  • Metadata
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9
Q

What are the CloudFormation template helpers?

A
  • References

- Functions

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10
Q

What CloudFormation component is mandatory?

A

Resources

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11
Q

What is CloudFormation Resource identifiers format?

A

AWS::aws-product-name::data-type-name

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12
Q

What is a CloudFormation Resource?

A
  • Resources are the core of your CloudFormation template (MANDATORY)
  • They represent the different AWS Components that will be created and configured
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13
Q

Can I create a dynamic amount of resources in CloudFormation?

A

No, you can’t. Everything in the CloudFormation template has to be declared. You can’t perform code generation there

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14
Q

Is every AWS Service supported by CloudFormation?

A

o Almost. Only a select few niches are not there yet

o You can work around that using AWS Lambda Custom Resources

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15
Q

What is a CloudFormation Parameter?

A

Parameters are a way to provide inputs to your AWS CloudFormation template

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16
Q

How many times can you use a CloudFormation Parameter?

A

Parameters can be used anywhere in a template

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17
Q

If a CloudFormation resource configuration is likely to change in the future, what you should do?

A

make it a parameter, you won’t have to re-upload a template to change its content

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18
Q

What can you use if some inputs cannot be determined ahead of time in CloudFormation?

A

parameters

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19
Q

How can you prevent errors from happening in your CloudFormation Parameters?

A

Using types

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20
Q

What are the CloudFormation Parameter’s types?

A 
o	String
o	Number
o	CommaDelimitedList
o	List
o	AWS Parameter
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21
Q

What are CloudFormation Pseudo Parameters?

A
  • AWS offers us pseudo parameters in any CloudFormation template.
  • These can be used at any time and are enabled by default
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22
Q

What are most important CloudFormation Pseudo Parameters?

A
  • accountId
  • region
  • stackId
  • stackName
23
Q

What is a CloudFormation Mapping?

A
  • Mappings are fixed, hardcoded variables within your CloudFormation Template.
  • They’re very handy to differentiate between different environments (dev vs prod), regions (AWS regions), AMI types, etc.
24
Q

When would you use CloudFormation mappings vs parameters?

A 
•	Mappings are great when you know in advance all the values that can be taken and that they can be deduced from variables such as
o	Region
o	Availability Zone
o	AWS Account
o	Environment (dev vs prod)
o	Etc…
25
Q

What is a CloudFormation Output?

A

The Outputs section declares optional outputs values that we can import into other stacks

26
Q

What you must do in your CloudFormation Output to allow another another stack to import it?

A

Define the Export key which it is optional, but without it you will not be able to import this resource in another template

27
Q

In what case could be very useful to define CloudFormation Outputs?

A

They’re very useful for example if you define a network CloudFormation, and output the variables such as VPC ID and your Subnet IDs

28
Q

When you could not delete a CloudFormation stack?

A

You can’t delete a CloudFormation Stack if its outputs are being referenced by another CloudFormation stack

29
Q

What is a CloudFormation Condition?

A

Conditions are used to control the creation of resources or outputs based on a condition

30
Q

What are common CloudFormation Conditions?

A

Conditions can be whatever you want them to be, but common ones are:
o Environment (dev / test / prod)
o AWS Region
o Any parameter value

31
Q

What can be referenced by a CloudFormation Condition?

A

Each condition can reference another condition, parameter value or mapping

32
Q

What are the CloudFormation Condition functions?

A 
The intrinsic function (logical) can be any of the following:
o	Fn::And
o	Fn::Equals
o	Fn::If
o	Fn::Not
o	Fn::Or
33
Q

What can be applied to CloudFormation Conditions?

A

Conditions can be applied to resources / outputs / etc…

34
Q

What are the CloudFormation must known intrinsic Functions?

A
  • Fn::Ref
  • Fn::GetAtt
  • Fn::FindInMap
  • Fn::ImportValue
  • Fn::Join
  • Fn::Sub
  • Condition Functions
35
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::Ref?

A

The Fn::Ref function can be leveraged to reference
o Parameters
o Resources

36
Q

What is returned when your use the function !ref to reference a resource in CloudFormation?

A

returns the physical ID of the underlying resource (ex: EC2 ID)

37
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::GetAtt?

A

Attributes of another resources can be attached to any resources you create, i.e.:
!GetAtt RESOURCE_NAME.AvailabilityZone

38
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::FindInMap?

A

We use Fn::FindInMap to access Maping values to return a named value from a specific key

39
Q

What is the CloudFormation function Fn::FindInMap nomenclature?

A
  • !FindInMap [ MapName, TopLevelKey, SecondLevelKey ]
40
Q

Explain how does work the CloudFormation function Fn::FindInMap

A

Supposing you have this:
Mappings:
— RegionMap:
—— us-east-1:
——— “32”: “ami-43jn34k”
——— “64”: “ami-fwfweke”
—— us-west-1
…
You can use
- !FindInMap [RegionMap, !Ref “AWS::Region”, 32]

41
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::ImportValue?

A

To Import values that are exported in other templates

42
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::Join?

A

Join values with a delimiter

43
Q

What is the CloudFormation function Fn::Join nomenclature?

A
  • !Join [delimiter, [comma-delimited list of values]]

- !Join [”:”, [a,b,c]] = a:b:c

44
Q

What is for the CloudFormation function Fn::Sub?

A

Is used to substitute variables from a text. String must contain ${VariableName} and will substitute them

45
Q

What happens when a CloudFormation Stack Creation Fails?

A

everything rolls back (gets deleted). We can look at the log

46
Q

What can you do to troubleshoot a CloudFormation Stack Creation Fail?

A

Option to disable rollback and troubleshoot what happened

47
Q

What happens when a CloudFormation Stack Update Fails?

A

The stack automatically rolls back to the previous known working state. Ability to see in the log what happened and error messages

48
Q

When you update a CloudFormation stack, you need to know what changes before it happens for greater confidence, what helps you with it?

A

ChangeSets

49
Q

What will not help you with a CloudFormation ChangeSet?

A

won’t say if the update will be successful

50
Q

What are and what allow you to do CloudFormation Nested Stacks?

A
  • Nested stacks are stacks as part of other stacks

* They allow you to isolate repeated patterns / common components in separate stacks and call them from other stacks

51
Q

What you must do to update CloudFormation Nested Stack?

A

To update a nested stack, always update the parent (root stack)

52
Q

When you use CloudFormation Cross vs Nested Stacks?

A

Cross Stacks
o Helpful when stacks have different lifecycles
o Use Outputs Export and Fn::ImportValue
o When you need to pass export values to many stacks (VPC Id, etc.…)
Nested Stacks
o Helpful when components must be re-used
o Ex: re-use how to properly configure an Application Load Balancer
o The nested stack only is important to the higher-level stack (it’s not shared)

53
Q

What is a CloudFormation StackSet?

A

Create, update, or delete stacks across multiple accounts and regions with a single operation

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