CloudFormation

CloudFormation is AWS's native infrastructure-as-code service. It lets you define AWS resources in YAML or JSON templates and deploy them as stacks.

Why It Matters

• It keeps AWS infrastructure in versioned templates.
• It supports repeatable provisioning and recovery.
• It fits naturally when your environment is already centered on AWS.

Core Pages

• CloudFormation concepts
• CloudFormation tutorials

Common Use Cases

• Create VPCs, EC2 instances, security groups, S3 buckets, and RDS instances.
• Reproduce infrastructure across regions or accounts.
• Review infrastructure changes before deployment.

Practical Notes

• Stacks are the unit of deployment.
• Parameters make templates reusable.
• Outputs make cross-stack and operator consumption easier.