Introduction to CloudFormation

Question 1

What is CloudFormation

Answer 1

A service that allows you to manage, configure and provision your AWS infrastructure as code.

Question 2

How are resourced defined in CloudFormation?

Answer 2

In the CloudFormation template

Question 3

How does CloudFormation use the template to create resources?

Answer 3

It interprets the template and makes appropriate API calls to create the resources defined.

Question 4

Which notation languages does CloudFormation support?

Answer 4

YAML

JSON

Question 5

What does YAML stand for?

Answer 5

YAML Ain’t Markup Language

Question 6

What does JSON stand for?

Answer 6

Javascript Object Notation

Question 7

Does AWS charge to use CloudFormation?

Answer 7

No. Only the resources created are charged.

Question 8

Can Cloudformation be used to manage updates and dependencies?

Answer 8

Yes

Question 9

In addition to creating a stack, can CloudFormation be used to roll back the entire stack?

Answer 9

Yes

Question 10

From where does CloudFormation read your template?

Answer 10

S3

Question 11

What do we call the resulting set of resources from deploying a template?

Answer 11

Stack - In IT, all of the technologies and resources used to deploy an application is called a “stack”.

Question 12

What is the minimum mandatory section of a CloudFormation template?

Answer 12

The Resources section.

Question 13

What is currently the only accepted template format version for CloudFormation?

Answer 13

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: “2010-09-09”

Question 14

What is the Metadata section of a CloudFormation script?

Answer 14

Data about data. This section can either be simple, and just defining information about the stack, or very complex in defining what should be done within the resource.

Question 15

What is the parameters section of CloudFormation script?

Answer 15

Defines inputs to be used by script variables. These include default inputs, or user defined inputs collected at deployment.

Question 16

What is the Conditions section of a CloudFormation script?

Answer 16

This defines conditional actions to be taken depending on other parameters.

Question 17

What is the Mappings section of a CloudFormation script?

Answer 17

Allows you to set values based on inputs. For example, set an AMI based on a region.

Question 18

What is the Transform section in a CloudFormation script?

Answer 18

Allows you to use snippets of code outside the main AWS template.

Question 19

What is the Resources section of the CloudFormation template?

Answer 19

This is where AWS resources such as EC2 instances are defined.

Question 20

What is the Output section of a CloudFormation template?

Answer 20

Allows CloudFormation to record specified outputs for later use by other CloudFormation scripts.