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bazaarvoice / cloudformation-ruby-dsl

Ruby DSL for creating Cloudformation templates
Apache License 2.0
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How can AWS CloudFormation help? #28

Closed cdandekar closed 9 years ago

cdandekar commented 9 years ago

cloudformation-ruby-dsl contributors and users,

Is there anything the AWS CloudFormation service could provide that can help in using and enhancing cloudformation-ruby-dsl? (For example, any additional API, any update to the template format, etc.)

Sincerely, The AWS CloudFormation Team

jonaf commented 9 years ago

@cdandekar It'd be nice if we could perform an update on a stack without changing the template itself, but only other properties. For example, updating a stack by changing the value of a parameter with no other changes. Currently, CloudFormation doesn't detect this as a change and rejects the update, saying that there's nothing to update.

cdandekar commented 9 years ago

@jonaf we added parameter-only updates: http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2014/05/12/aws-cloudformation-enables-parameter-only-stack-updates-and-stack-notification-topic-changes/

jonaf commented 9 years ago

@cdandekar In practice, this doesn't seem to work without changes to the effective template. For example, a Parameter that does not produce a tangible change to any resources will return an error message, stating that there is nothing to change.

cdandekar commented 9 years ago

@jonaf The parameter-only updates is useful when you want to continue using the same stack template, but change any of the parameter values and have that take effect wherever the changed parameter value(s) is used in the stack resources.

Can you elaborate on the scenarios where you want to change parameter values, but do not necessarily want to change any stack resource?

jonaf commented 9 years ago

One example might be where EC2 instances query the CloudFormation stack that created them for state information or updates. For example, a stack may be updated to reflect a more current version of automation or deployment code, and the EC2 instances provisioned by that stack may query the CloudFormation API to discover they need to self-update to the defined version. Parameters are a natural choice for this criteria because CloudFormation tags are immutable and EC2 tags are limited to a maximum of 10 (and you may have multiple AutoScaling Groups of EC2 instances as part of the same stack and only want to perform one, holistic update to effect changes to multiple AutoScaling Groups).

Another example would be for orchestration, deployment and/or dashboarding microservices that query various Amazon API's, including the CloudFormation API, in order to derive (current) information about infrastructure.

jimcroft commented 9 years ago

This isn't specific to the Ruby DSL but I would love to see the Cloudformation API support a dry-run mode for create/update stack that would go beyond basic template validation and report on what resources would be created, modified or replaced if executed for real.

Aside from saving engineer time while developing stacks it would be very useful for speeding up and saving costs when doing automated testing of commits/PRs for templates.

temujin9 commented 9 years ago

+1 for a dry run mode for the Cloudformation APIs.

Cheers,

Nathaniel Eliot On Feb 13, 2015 3:59 AM, "Jim Croft" notifications@github.com wrote:

This isn't specific to the Ruby DSL but I would love to see the Cloudformation API support a dry-run mode for create/update stack that would go beyond basic template validation and report on what resources would be created, modified or replaced if executed for real.

Aside from saving engineer time while developing stacks it would be very useful for speeding up and saving costs when doing automated testing of commits/PRs for templates.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/bazaarvoice/cloudformation-ruby-dsl/issues/28#issuecomment-74230334 .

jdrago999 commented 9 years ago

I second the +1 for dry-run -- I spend a lot of time waiting for a real run to complete, only to find several minutes later that there was a problem with one of my arguments. A fast dry-run would save me hours.

temujin9 commented 9 years ago

+1 for enabling "changeless" updates. Attempting to add an Output to a stack also fails with Malformed input-No updates are to be performed.

tobinquadros commented 9 years ago

Another + 1 for dry-run. Stack updates are always dangerous from a regenerated template, and even blue-green stack replacements could benefit from the visibility.

ghost commented 9 years ago

+1 for dry run.

leejones commented 9 years ago

+1 for dry run

flyinbutrs commented 9 years ago

+1 for both suggestions. Dry run would be super useful for obvious reasons. And our build process also uses CF parameters to get information like which puppet environment to join or which role assign to itself.

jdrago999 commented 9 years ago

Hi @cdandekar it's been six months. Any further information you can share??

dasgoll commented 9 years ago

Hi @cdandekar. Any updates?

cdandekar commented 9 years ago

I have conveyed your feedback and feature requests to the current AWS CloudFormation team. Going forward, lets use the AWS Forum (https://forums.aws.amazon.com/forum.jspa?forumID=92) and Twitter handle @AWSCloudFormer to provide feedback and receive updates.

jonaf commented 9 years ago

Thanks for the update @cdandekar ! I'm closing this issue so that folks can continue the feedback/conversation on the more appropriate channel you identified.