Cloud Computing Intermediate

What is CloudFormation?

An AWS service that provisions and manages cloud resources using declarative JSON or YAML templates.

CloudFormation templates define AWS resources (EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, VPC, etc.) and their configurations. A template creates a "stack" — a collection of resources managed as a single unit. Changes to templates trigger stack updates with dependency-aware ordering.

Features include change sets (preview changes), rollback on failure, drift detection, nested stacks, and cross-stack references. CloudFormation is AWS-specific; Terraform provides similar functionality across multiple cloud providers.

Related Terms

An approach to building applications that fully exploit cloud computing advantages like scalability, resilience, and flexibility.

Cloud Migration

The process of moving applications, data, and workloads from on-premises infrastructure to cloud computing environments.

Virtual Machine (VM)

A software-based emulation of a physical computer that runs its own operating system and applications.

Cloud Storage Tiers

Different storage classes offered by cloud providers, optimized for varying access patterns from frequent to archival use.

A computing environment that combines on-premises infrastructure with public cloud services, allowing data and applications to move between them.

A distributed computing paradigm that processes data near the source of generation rather than in a centralized cloud data center.

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