What is AWS Cloudformation? Pros and Cons?

Summary

The video introduces AWS CloudFormation, an infrastructure as code service, emphasizing its importance in the software industry. It explains CloudFormation's benefits, such as simplifying deployment and enabling regional expansion, and compares it with other IaC tools like Terraform, Serverless Framework, AWS SAM, and AWS CDK. The speaker shares insights on the learning curve, potential pitfalls, and the concept of drift, concluding with advice on getting started, particularly recommending AWS SAM for beginners.

Takeaways

• 🚀 AWS CloudFormation is a favorite service for infrastructure as code (IaC) in the software industry, simplifying deployment and management of AWS resources.
• 📄 CloudFormation uses template files written in YAML or JSON to define resources and their configurations, which can be created, updated, and managed through AWS.
• 🔧 The service allows for incremental updates and automatic rollbacks in case of issues, providing a safe and efficient way to manage infrastructure changes.
• 🌐 CloudFormation is particularly useful for regional expansion, enabling easy replication of infrastructure across different AWS regions.
• 🔍 Key concepts in CloudFormation include template files, stacks (logical groupings of resources), and change sets (preview of changes before deployment).
• 📈 Pros of using CloudFormation include ease of use, support for code reviews, integration with CI/CD pipelines, and a large community for support.
• ⚠️ Learning curve and potential dangers from seemingly innocent changes are among the cons, as well as the risk of 'drift' if resources are manually modified outside of CloudFormation.
• 🔄 Comparison with other IaC tools like AWS SAM, Serverless Framework, Terraform, and AWS CDK shows that while they have their unique features, they all compile down to CloudFormation.
• 📚 Getting started with CloudFormation is recommended to begin with AWS SAM due to its straightforward CLI tool and support for rapid development cycles.
• 🛠️ For beginners, start by installing SAM, reading AWS CloudFormation documentation, and experimenting with basic resources like Lambda functions and S3 buckets.

Q & A

What is AWS CloudFormation?

AWS CloudFormation is an infrastructure as code service provided by Amazon Web Services that allows users to define and deploy resources through template files written in YAML or JSON, which can then be uploaded to AWS for creation and management of those resources.

Why is learning AWS CloudFormation considered an important skill in the software industry?

Learning AWS CloudFormation is important because it enables developers to manage and provision AWS resources in a reproducible and automated manner, which is crucial for scaling applications, ensuring consistency, and integrating with continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.

What are the key concepts of AWS CloudFormation?

The key concepts of AWS CloudFormation include template files (in YAML or JSON) that define resources, stacks which are logical groupings of resources, and change sets that represent the differences between the current state and the desired state of the infrastructure.

What are the benefits of using AWS CloudFormation?

Benefits of using AWS CloudFormation include ease of use, support for regional expansion, the ability to introduce code review mechanisms for infrastructure changes, easy integration with CI pipelines, and a large community for support and troubleshooting.

What are some potential drawbacks or challenges when using AWS CloudFormation?

Drawbacks of AWS CloudFormation include a steep learning curve initially, the risk of inadvertently causing issues with seemingly innocent changes (like renaming resources), and the concept of drift, where manual changes outside of CloudFormation can lead to inconsistencies and deployment failures.

How does AWS CloudFormation compare to other infrastructure as code solutions like Terraform, Serverless Framework, AWS SAM, and AWS CDK?

AWS CloudFormation is the underlying technology used by AWS SAM and the Serverless Framework, both of which simplify the deployment of serverless applications. Terraform is a provider-agnostic tool that can manage resources across multiple cloud providers. AWS CDK is a newer offering that allows developers to define infrastructure using actual programming languages like JavaScript or TypeScript, offering more flexibility and familiar programming constructs.

What is the recommended starting point for beginners to learn AWS CloudFormation?

For beginners, it is recommended to start with AWS SAM, which provides a CLI tool for quick development cycles and is straightforward to use. This approach allows new learners to get hands-on experience with CloudFormation templates and understand the basics before diving into more complex scenarios.

How can AWS CloudFormation be integrated into a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline?

AWS CloudFormation can be integrated into a CI/CD pipeline by attaching the YAML or JSON template files to CI tools like GitHub hooks. Changes to these files can trigger a pipeline in AWS through services like AWS CodePipeline, automatically deploying the infrastructure updates defined in the templates.

What is 'drift' in the context of AWS CloudFormation?

Drift refers to the state where the actual configuration of resources in AWS does not match the expected configuration as defined in the CloudFormation stack. This can occur if changes are made directly through the AWS console or CLI, outside of the CloudFormation management process, leading to inconsistencies and potential deployment failures.

How can one mitigate the risk of data loss due to changes in AWS CloudFormation?

To mitigate the risk of data loss, it is important to understand the implications of changes in CloudFormation templates, especially when it comes to resource names and configurations that can lead to resource replacement. Additionally, maintaining version control over the infrastructure code and thoroughly reviewing changes before deployment can help prevent accidental data loss.

What is the recommended approach for troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation issues?

For troubleshooting AWS CloudFormation issues, it is recommended to first understand the concept of change sets and the differences they represent. If problems arise, reviewing the CloudFormation logs and the status of the resources can provide insights. Since all tools like SAM, Serverless Framework, Terraform, and CDK compile down to CloudFormation, understanding the underlying CloudFormation processes is crucial for debugging.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to AWS CloudFormation

The speaker expresses excitement about discussing AWS CloudFormation, a favorite service due to its importance in the software industry. The video aims to provide a simple understanding of CloudFormation. It begins with defining CloudFormation using a relatable example of building a REST API with API Gateway and Lambda Function. The speaker then explains the complexity of managing AWS resources manually and introduces CloudFormation as a solution to define, create, and manage AWS resources through template files, emphasizing its ease of use and benefits like automatic rollback in case of issues.

05:01

📚 Key Concepts of CloudFormation

The speaker delves into the key concepts of CloudFormation, starting with the creation of template files in YAML or JSON, which contain resources representing AWS components. An example of a Lambda function in YAML format is provided. The speaker then explains the concept of 'stacks' as logical groupings of templates and resources, and 'change sets' as diffs between updates that allow for incremental and previewed changes. The benefits of CloudFormation are highlighted, including simplicity, regional expansion support, code review integration, and CI pipeline compatibility, along with a large community for support.

10:02

📉 Pros and Cons of CloudFormation

The speaker discusses the pros and cons of using CloudFormation. The pros include ease of use, support for regional expansion, the ability to integrate with code reviews and CI pipelines, and a strong community for support. The cons are the initial steep learning curve, the potential danger of seemingly innocent changes leading to resource deletion, and the concept of 'drift' where manual changes outside CloudFormation can cause out-of-sync issues. The speaker advises treating the AWS account as read-only to avoid drift and emphasizes the importance of understanding CloudFormation's nuances.

15:03

🔄 Comparison with Other IaC Solutions

The speaker compares CloudFormation with other Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions like AWS SAM, Serverless Framework, Terraform, and AWS CDK. AWS SAM and Serverless Framework are similar and both use CloudFormation under the hood, with SAM being AWS-supported. Terraform is noted for its provider-agnostic approach, suitable for managing resources across multiple cloud providers. AWS CDK is highlighted as a newer offering that allows infrastructure to be coded in familiar programming languages with constructs like loops and conditionals. The speaker points out that all these tools compile down to CloudFormation, making knowledge of CloudFormation essential for debugging.

🌟 Getting Started with CloudFormation

The speaker suggests using AWS SAM for beginners due to its simplicity and the ease of using a CLI tool for quick development cycles. The process of getting started with SAM and CloudFormation is recommended, starting with basic resources like Lambda functions and S3 buckets. The speaker plans to release a follow-up video on getting started with SAM and CloudFormation for serverless application development. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to explore more AWS and software engineering content on the speaker's channel and to like and subscribe.

Keywords

💡AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation is an infrastructure as code (IaC) service provided by Amazon Web Services that allows users to define and deploy resources on AWS through template files written in YAML or JSON. It simplifies the process of creating and managing AWS resources by treating infrastructure as code, enabling version control, and facilitating the automation of infrastructure deployment. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the ease of use and the benefits of CloudFormation, such as its ability to manage complex infrastructure setups and support for regional expansion.

💡Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a software development methodology that involves managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than through manual setup in a cloud console. This approach treats infrastructure as if it were software, allowing for version control, automation, and repeatability. In the context of the video, IaC is exemplified by the use of AWS CloudFormation, where infrastructure is defined in template files that can be version-controlled and deployed in a consistent manner.

💡YAML

YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-readable data serialization format often used for configuration files and data exchange between languages with different data structures. It is one of the two formats (the other being JSON) in which AWS CloudFormation templates can be written. YAML is known for its readability and ease of use, making it a popular choice for defining CloudFormation templates due to its clean and straightforward syntax.

💡Stacks

In the context of AWS CloudFormation, stacks are the logical groupings of resources that are defined within a template. Stacks allow users to manage related resources together, making it easier to perform operations such as creation, updates, and deletion in a coordinated manner. A stack can include multiple template files, and there can be nested stacks for more complex deployments, creating a hierarchical relationship between different stacks.

💡Change Sets

Change sets in AWS CloudFormation represent a collection of changes that will be made to the resources in a stack when a new template is applied. They provide a way to preview the changes that CloudFormation will make before actually applying them, allowing users to review and approve the changes before they are implemented. This feature helps to prevent unexpected modifications and ensures that only intended changes are applied to the infrastructure.

💡Continuous Integration (CI)

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice where developers integrate their code changes into a shared repository frequently, allowing for early detection of integration problems, conflicts, and bugs. In the context of AWS CloudFormation, CI can be used to automatically trigger the deployment of infrastructure changes when updates are made to the CloudFormation template files, ensuring that the infrastructure remains in sync with the codebase.

💡Serverless Application Model (SAM)

The Serverless Application Model (SAM) is an open-source framework for building serverless applications. It is fully supported by AWS and simplifies the process of defining, deploying, and testing serverless applications on AWS. SAM transforms serverless applications into AWS CloudFormation templates, leveraging the power of IaC to manage serverless resources such as Lambda functions, API Gateways, and more.

💡Serverless Framework

The Serverless Framework is an open-source CLI (Command Line Interface) tool that provides a simple way to deploy and manage serverless applications across different cloud providers. It is a wrapper around AWS CloudFormation and other cloud provider APIs, allowing users to define their serverless infrastructure in a simple and intuitive configuration language. The framework then translates these configurations into CloudFormation or other provider-specific IaC templates for deployment.

💡Terraform

Terraform is an IaC tool developed by HashiCorp that enables users to manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers in a provider-agnostic way. Unlike AWS CloudFormation, which is specific to AWS, Terraform can handle infrastructure deployment on various platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Terraform uses its own declarative language to define infrastructure, which it then translates into the respective cloud provider's resources.

💡AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK)

The AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) is a software development framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code, using familiar programming languages such as TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, and Java. Unlike CloudFormation, which uses YAML or JSON templates, the CDK allows developers to use full programming languages and constructs like loops and conditionals to define infrastructure. The CDK then generates CloudFormation templates from this code, which can be deployed to AWS.

💡Drift

Drift in the context of AWS CloudFormation refers to the situation where the actual state of the AWS resources diverges from the expected state as defined in the CloudFormation template. This can occur when changes are made to the resources directly through the AWS console or CLI, outside of the CloudFormation management process. Drift can lead to inconsistencies and deployment failures because CloudFormation's snapshot of the infrastructure state is out of sync with the actual state.

Highlights

Introduction to AWS CloudFormation, one of the favorite AWS services of the speaker.

Explanation of why AWS CloudFormation is an important skill in the software industry, though it can be intimidating to learn.

Overview of what to expect from the video, including an introduction to CloudFormation, key concepts, pros and cons, comparison with other IaC solutions, and how to get started.

Simple example to illustrate the concept of CloudFormation using AWS services like API Gateway and Lambda Function.

Discussion on the complexity of managing AWS resources manually and the solution provided by CloudFormation.

Explanation of how CloudFormation works as an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provider, allowing the creation and deployment of AWS resources through template files.

The benefits of using CloudFormation, such as ease of use, support for regional expansion, and automated rollback in case of errors.

Key concepts of CloudFormation including template files in YAML or JSON, resources, stacks, and change sets.

Pros of CloudFormation like simplicity, regional expansion support, code review mechanisms, and CI integration.

Cons of CloudFormation, including the steep learning curve, potential dangers of seemingly innocent changes, and the issue of drift.

Comparison of CloudFormation with other IaC solutions like AWS SAM, Serverless Framework, Terraform, and AWS CDK.

Recommendation to start with AWS SAM for beginners due to its simplicity and quick development cycles.

Advice on how to get started with CloudFormation by installing SAM, reading documentation, and experimenting with basic AWS resources.

Mention of a follow-up video on getting started with SAM and CloudFormation for developing serverless applications.

Encouragement for viewers to explore the speaker's channel for more AWS, software engineering, and system design videos.

Transcripts

what is going on guys i am very very

excited about this video because i

finally get to talk to you about one of

my favorite aws services

aws cloud formation and the reason that

i wanted to make this video is not only

because i love aws cloudformation

but because i think it is such an

important skill right now

especially in the software industry but

it could be kind of intimidating to

learn

so what i wanted to do in this video is

just kind of give you a very simple

understanding of what cloudformation is

so in terms of what to expect we're

first going to talk about

what is cloud formation and i'm going to

explain to you with a very simple

example

second we're going to talk about the key

cloud formation concepts

from there we're going to talk about the

pros and cons of using cloud formation

and then from there we're going to talk

about how it compares to some other

popular infrastructure as

code solutions such as terraform

serverless framework aws sam

also known as serverless application

model and

aws cdk which is cloud development kit

and then finally i'm going to talk to

you about how to get started learning

cloud formation

for your next project so first of all

let's explain

what cloudformation is through a very

very simple example

so let's say you're just getting started

on aws and you go ahead on us east one

you're in the aws

console you want to build a rest api and

you're going to use api gateway combined

with a lambda function because it's

super super

easy to build rest apis and by the way i

have a whole video on this and i think i

have one where you can set this up in

eight clicks or something like that

i'll put that in the description so

you're having a good time in aws console

you're doing all this stuff manually

you decide hey i need a database i need

my dynamodb table so you go ahead and

create that

and then you decide later hey i also

needs an s3 bucket to store some of my

log data or some other metadata about my

app

you go ahead and create that and you're

like hey i need some roles that go along

with my lambda function now to access

this stuff

okay then i want aws athena to perform

analytics

i want to create some users for my

business users to access athena

then they gotta get logins and passwords

then you gotta get permissions to them

as well

and you can see this is getting very

very difficult to manage just in this

very simple example

and then what's worse after that well

your boss comes to you and says hey dan

your application is doing really well

we want to move it over to eu west one

because we want to serve

our european customers too and then

you've got to do this and you've got to

do this all through the console

and you better hope you remembered the

name of every resource you

created and all the permissions that you

added and you better hope that you

didn't forget anything because then all

this isn't going to work

and you just feel like this guy this

isn't a good feeling to have to

kind of copy paste all this stuff so no

one wants to feel like this guy no one

wants to look this sad this upset this

frustrated

so there must be a better way what is

the better way

and this is where cloudformation comes

in so wouldn't it be nice

wouldn't it be nice instead of going

into the console and clicking

a thousand buttons and creating all

these things and having to manage them

and remember them

that we can instead write a document

write a file a template file that

defines how each of these things are

created

how they are constructed every

connection between them all the

permissions

and have that all written as code and

wouldn't it be nice

if we can upload that to aws and say aws

can you go ahead

and deploy this file and create your api

gateway create your lambda function

create your roles create your dynamodb

table your s3 bucket

your athena databases your users your

everything wouldn't it be nice if we can

just upload a simple file

to somewhere and get aws to do this

well this is what aws cloudformation is

it is an infrastructure as code provider

that allows you to do

just what i demonstrate it allows you to

create and define

a file and then upload that to aws

cloudformation which is this guy here

and aws cloudformation through a single

click will take that file and go

and deploy every single thing in this

diagram

for you and then give you status updates

on the way to say yeah this is done

that's done that's done

and then oops what if something goes

wrong maybe your lambda function is

having a problem

it'll automatically roll back for you

wouldn't that be nice

well that's exactly what aws

cloudformation is and that's why it's so

awesome

it's so easy to use all you do is define

your template files

you upload them there's a couple

different means to upload them which

we'll get to in a second

it's great for regional expansion so if

you want to move all this stuff to a

different region if your business is

quickly growing then it's great for that

it's got a whole bunch of other benefits

but this is the main idea you write a

template file

you upload that to cloudformation in

this case and that is responsible for

creating

all of this different stuff here that is

what cloudformation is in a nutshell

so let's move on to the key concepts of

cloudformation now

uh so the first one is that you create

these

uh template files that are in either

yaml or

json now for whatever reason yaml has

really taken off i don't know why you

would expect that everyone would use

json

but it seems like the community has

decided that yaml is the way to go

and i've been doing this for a while and

i gotta say it looks pretty clean when

you use yaml compared to json so i'm

all for that but anyways you define

these templates and these template files

contain

resources and the resources are

essentially all the aws things that you

want to create

your you know s3 buckets your sqs cues

your

im rolls your users everything that goes

with it

so that is the first concept so what do

these templates even look like

well this is a example of a lambda

function

in a yaml format so what are we looking

at here well this is the name

of your resource and the type of your

resource is a lambda function

and then you're defining some properties

on that lambda function and you're

saying the handler's

input file is the index.handler you're

seeing it has a role called this guy

and this example is actually doing

something fairly interesting typically

what you would do with the lambda

function

is in the code section here you would

give it a zip file that's located in s3

but what they're doing here is actually

kind of interesting it's it's a little

bit of a shortcut so they're using

substitution

to do some inline javascript so all this

javascript down here this is going to be

the definition of your lambda function

and then finally it lets you specify the

runtime of it

now this is how you would define in this

case a lambda function but it's the same

format for every other aws resource you

just specify the type

if you want an sqsq you put that here if

you want an s3 bucket you put that here

there's recipes that you can follow and

this stuff is very very well documented

so that is the first concept you kind of

define these yaml or json files that are

called templates and they contain it of

us

resources so the second key concept is

something called stacks

and these are the things that are the

logical groupings of your templates and

their resources so maybe you would

set this up on an application level so

every application has a different stack

you can combine multiple template files

together so you can kind of sum them up

and deploy them all at once

with the same stack you can also create

something called

nested stacks where you can have kind of

graph like relationships between your

stacks if you want to deploy something a

little bit more complex

but that's stacks and the third main

concept to know about is something

called change sets

and what change sets are are basically a

diff

between what cloudformation has from

your previous upload

and what you are attempting to upload so

they are the diff between those two

things

similar to what you would see on git if

you have a diff between two git commits

uh so what change sets basically do is

show you a preview of what

cloudformation is going to do in its

incremental update

so cloudformation always updates

incrementally it always looks at what

has

changed since your last upload and only

performs updates on things that have

changed so that's how cloud formation

works it works in incremental steps

so those are the key concepts now let's

talk about some of the pros and cons of

cloudformation so in terms of the pros i

kind of mentioned a lot of them here

but it makes your life just a whole lot

easier it's very simple and quick to

whip together some recipes that can do

some pretty complicated things

like i said it's also great for regional

expansion so you can very very quickly

deploy this out to multiple different

regions

with just a couple clicks second it

allows you to introduce code review

mechanisms for infrastructure changes

i can't tell you how many times i've

seen people accidentally fat finger

something

and delete either a queue a database a

bucket a file

something on aws and you just think why

why did you do this to yourself so using

infrastructure as code and cloud

formation in particular you can add an

additional layer of verification to your

infrastructure

change process through code reviews so

instead of someone just going in there

and making changes directly in the

console without anyone knowing

you can kind of release your

infrastructure updates through a change

management process

that is backed by code reviews uh the

third main pro is that you can very

easily integrate this with the ci

pipeline ci stands for continuous

integration

so you can attach your yaml or json

template files to

things like github hooks and based on

changes to your files it'll

automatically trigger a

pipeline in aws through code pipeline

and deploy all your changes through

cloudformation

so it's very very quick and easy to get

started with this and introduce a full

ci pipeline for your infrastructure

changes

fourth it's got a huge community support

cloudformation has been around for many

years

uh it's not a new service by any means

there's tons of stack overflow help tons

of community volunteers that'll help you

kind of work through some of your

problems so

you're not alone if you face some issues

with cloud formation

now in terms of the cons every great

thing has its set of weaknesses and

cloud formation is no different

so the first con is that it's a little

bit of a steep learning curve

and i would say that this is less true

more recently because like i said it's

got a large community support and

there's tons of examples out there

but it's just a little bit difficult

getting started because there's a lot of

concepts at play and a lot of different

recipes and things that can go wrong

that can impact you so i would say it's

got a steep learning curve but once you

learn the main concepts this stuff is

cake like it's very very easy to

understand

the second main con is that i learned

this the hard way which is that innocent

looking changes can be dangerous

and what i mean by this is that in my

particular case

if you change the name of a resource

such as a dynamodb

table or a database instance or whatever

changing the name will

cause cloudformation to delete that

thing and spin up a new one

and when it deletes it there goes all

your data so

you gotta understand the nuances of

cloudformation formation because

unfortunately these things do exist and

it can't come to bite you so you just

kind of need to be aware of them before

you get started

and the third one is there's this

concept of drift and it can be painful

if you're not aware of it

and drift is this concept that

cloudformation keeps a snapshot of what

it

thinks the state of your aws account is

and all the resources that are tied to

your cloudformation stack

and it kind of persists this snapshot

and that snapshot typically only changes

when you perform an update through a

change set through that process that i

spoke to you

before about however if you come

you know through your aws console or

through to your aws cli

and you make a modification directly to

some of the resources that your

cloudformation stack is in charge of

maintaining

then that causes drift which is an out

of sync issue where cloudformation

thinks

that your resource is set up in this way

but in fact on aws

it is set up in a different way so what

i'm trying to say here is that when you

start

using cloudformation to manage your

resources you kind of need to

treat your aws account as read-only you

shouldn't be making manual changes

in your account anymore that'll cause a

concept called drift

and it can actually cause your

deployments to fail on cloud formation

uh so be aware of drift it's i label it

as a con but maybe it's just kind of a

negative feature about cloud formation

so we talked about what's good and

what's bad now let's talk about

uh kind of how does it compare to some

other popular infrastructure as

code solutions uh so the first one that

i want to talk about is aws sam stands

for serverless application management

and under the hood sam actually uses

cloudformation

it's great for setting up like it says

serverless applications so lambdas api

gateways

it really helps you build serverless

applications very quickly

now on the other side of that coin is

the serverless framework which i would

say

is pretty much a direct competitor to

aws sam

but interestingly serverless also uses

cloud formation under the hood

but it uses kind of a wrapper language

on top of it

that you need to use but it looks very

very similar to what cloudformation

looks like

so these are very very similar sam and

serverless there's not too much

differences between them but

you know one is supported and built by

aws one is not so

take that as your deciding factor

perhaps

now the next popular one is terraform

and what terraform is great at

is if you have a kind of mix and match

scenario where some of your

infrastructure may be on

azure some of it may be on aws some of

it may be elsewhere

in another cloud provider terraform is a

great wrapper on top

of cloud infrastructure concepts which

allows you to be provider agnostic

a lot of people like to say that

terraform is more dedicated to

infrastructure i don't think i would

necessarily agree with that but that's

kind of what the community has decided

and then finally there's aws cloud

development kit and this is kind of a

newer offering from aws

and cdk allows you to write actual

javascript or typescript or some other

languages as well

and declare your infrastructure as code

in your template files as opposed to

using

this json or yaml notation so it allows

you to use

constructs like if statements for loops

all that kind of stuff that you would

expect in a standard programming

language and because of that it allows

you to do some very interesting and

flexible things

so this is kind of the newer hotter

thing to learn right now cloud

development kit

now another thing that i wanted to point

out was that all of these sam

serverless terraform and cdk all compile

down to cloud formation to deploy to aws

so regardless of which one of these

things that you choose

if you're ever facing problems with any

of these frameworks

you're probably going to need to know

how cloud formation works to debug the

problem

so it's a very good starting point very

good foundational

skill to learn because it's going to be

present in all of these different

frameworks and actually some of the

notation is almost identical

to what you would see in a cloud

formation template file

in yaml now if you're just getting

started i would suggest to probably

learn sam first and the reason i say

this is because

if you're trying to get started through

the console it's not a very good process

in terms of development cycles

you kind of got to upload a new template

file every time you make a change

try it out see if it fails you know make

a change again upload it try it out

yada yada yada now if you're using sam

it comes with a handy cli tool in fact

these all do so maybe this applies to

all these different ones but

i i learned on sam i think it's

straightforward but anyways because

you're using a cli

tool to update your cloudformation stack

your very very quick cycles because you

just define your cloudformation file

locally so it allows you to test things

out kind of just get your feet wet and

experiment a little bit

so i would definitely use sam when

you're getting started in terms of like

mechanically what should you do to get

started install sam

read some of the documentation on aws

cloudformation and just get started with

something basic like a lambda function

and maybe like an s3 bucket just get

your feet wet and just create some stuff

like anything you learn by doing and

cloud formation is no exception

so i'm going to be coming out with a

follow-up video to this which is kind of

getting started with sam and getting

started with cloudformation to develop

serverless applications so i'll put that

in the description section when it is

available

and if you like this video be sure to

check out my channel i have a whole

bunch of aws

and software engineering system design

videos available on my channel

and as always please don't forget to

like and subscribe and i'll see you next

time