A Cloud Guru Course: Mastering CloudFormation
Everything you need to set you up for a successful course. We'll quickly cover some tips when working with the AWS CLI. We'll then cover a brief review of the CloudFormation template anatomy including metadata, intrinsic functions, as well as exporting and importing values between templates.
Take a high-level look at what this course has to offer.
A quick refresher on AWS CLI, CloudFormation fundenmentals, and navigating the AWS CloudFormation Docs.
A complete look at CloudFormation's template anatomy, with Parameters/Types, Mappings, Conditions, Metadata, Resources, Outputs and more.
A detailed look at intrinsic functions as well as a deep dive on Exporting and Importing values between templates.
A list of the most common CloudFormation pitfalls as well how to best setup your code editor, when working with CloudFormation.
Learn to create, deploy and implement custom resources that can help extend CloudFormation way beyond just native resources.
Demo Description: Create and use a custom resource that provisions unique subdomains and routing based on application version. Eg. feat-blue--projectx.domain.com
A birds-eye view of Custom Resources; what they are and various use cases.
A detailed walk-through of the custom resource you will be building; as well as calling out a few custom resource helper libraries.
A guided jounery in building your own custom resource, and how to deploy it.
A complete guide to implementing and using your new custom resource
Elevate your template functionality with Macros and Transforms. Learn to create and use custom template functions.
A comprehensive look at Macros & Transforms; along with various use cases and limits.
A hands-on lab where you will be building a deploying a Macro that is able to perform string manipulations in your templates.
A hands-on lab where you will be building a deploying a Macro that cleanly provides a way to globally tag all the resources at once.
A hands-on lab where you will build & deploy a Macro that abstracts away your custom resource, making it appear as though it's a native resource type.
Learn to debug and test your Lambda's locally, or as part of a deployment step.
A focused look at the most impactful CloudFormation features, workflows and best practices for organizing, securing and managing your templates and stacks.
An advanced exploration of Nested Stacks; how they work, use cases, features and a detailed hands-on demo.
An extensive look at safe-guarding your secrets when working with CloudFormation without compromising on workflow or security.
A detailed examination of various techniques, workflows and tools for validating, cross-referencing, and orginizing your templates.
A practical look at a variety of approaches to automating the tasks of versioning, linting, packaging, storing and continuously deploying your templates.
A comprehensive review of some of the lesser known, but extremely powerful CloudFormation features.
A guided investigation of service roles; what they are and the granular control over stacks they provide.
An exploration of Change Sets; what they are, some powerful use cases along with a hands-on demo on how to take full advantage of them when you deploy.
An in-depth look at stack sets; some of their most important benefits and limitations as well as a hands-on demo of how they can help you master mult-region and account deploys.
Learn how to completely protect your stack resources, with ease using stack policies.
Learn how to provision your EC2 instances complete with all required services, files, users, and groups all with native CloudFormation.
Demo Description: Build and deploy a Ghost Blogging CMS hosted on EC2. Learn how to provision the instance for required packages with CloudFormation.
Learn about CloudFormationInit and how it can orgistrate your EC2 application provisioning.
Explore ConfigSets and how they offer declaritive control over the services, files, users, and groups that get installed on your EC2 instances
Learn how to orgastrate the provisioning, updating and deleting of your instances with resource policies and cfn-signal.
Learn how to use cfn-up to keep you EC2 instances in sync with changes to your templates.
Learn advanced techniques and workflows when working with CloudFormation and serverless; along with solutions to common challenges.
A detailed look at AWS Serverless Application Repository; what it is and how to use it as your team's extensive infrastructure rolodex.
Learn how to automate the deployment of a serverless real-time voting application; as well as solutions to related CloudFormation challenges.
Learn how you can programmatically explore and control CloudFormation in a custom built Cloud Portal complete with Github Repository and Actions Integrations.
A discussion of common uses for programmic control of CloudFormation. A detailed look at the Cloud Portal application you'll be deploying as well as a step-by-step deployment walk-through.
A review of the Cloud Portal functionality followed by a comprehesive code walk-through to see what makes it tick.
A full and complete walk-through and tear down of all stacks, keys, configs, ssm params, roles etc that we're created for this course.
Simplfiy your CloudFormation workflow with a an industry CLI tool. We’ll briefly review and compare a number of industry tool options. Additionally, we'll also be taking a quick look at the CloudFormation Registry and CLI.
A high-level look at The Serverless Framework, AWS SAM, Troposphere and AWS CDK; compairing their feature sets and workflows.
Learn how, even though new to the scene at time of recording; the CloudFormation Registry and CLI promise to significantly standardize and open up CloudFormation to third-party resources.
Congradulations, a sincere thanks and brief good-bye; until next time.