Amazon Web Service (AWS) is a strategic partner of FPT Software during the development of cloud computing capabilities. In recent 2016, FPT Software archived 200 AWS Certifications, and received AWS Partner Network Certification Distinction from AWS, this certificate is only given for companies have up to 200 AWS Certifications.

With strong team of Solution Architects are verified by AWS, projects of FSOFT apply new and powerful technologies of AWS to increase quality and performance, one of them is CloudFormation, which is used to manage and provision AWS resources.

The definition of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) was born in recent years changed the way to manage and provision resources on virtual server or on-premise system in general and on AWS in particular. Instead of traditional way to manage and provision resource by documents or guideline, almost actions to provision resources must be manual, currently we can code to do it by automate, AWS CloudFormation is a service like that.

AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators an easy way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in an orderly and predictable fashion. To define a CloudFormation template, there are 2 familiar format, JSON and YAML.

1

You can use default template of CloudFormation or you can customize template of yourself  to describe AWS resources and configuration parameters of that resources when they are deployed. The order for provisioning AWS resources and service or the dependence of the resources together is not a problem, CloudFormation will take care it by default or it can be defined specific in template.

Tagging is one of the most powerful features of AWS which use to manage and filter resource by defined categories, can still be declare in CloudFormation template. AWS resources with Tagging will be filtered easy and support for search feature or grant permission for AWS users on that resources.

2

There are 3 ways to deploy a CloudFormation template after defined:

  • via AWS Management Console;
  • AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
  • or AWS API.

When a template is deployed, AWS resources are described in this template will be managed centrally as a collection called CloudFormation Stack. AWS recommends that user should operate CloudFormation Stack by function and task of resources to take an easy way to manage and update. After the resources are deployed, user can change, update that resources in control, same as version control system in the development a software application.

3

Moreover, with addition tool AWS CloudFormation Designer, user can easily build a template to deploy a system with full components required on AWS but no need to know more detail about the syntax of CloudFormation template, just simply drag and drop, the resources tag will automatically be generated and ready to run. 

4

Read more: Tools and Technologies Are Key Differentiators for FPT in AWS Managed Service Marketplace

At the end of 2016, the team with the contribution of Cloud Consultant Team (CLI), Solution & Technology Unit (STU) and FSU11.BU11 joined in a project for SoftBank Company (SB), one of the big companies about telecom of Japan. The main scope of project is to build a CI/CD platform for SB on AWS Cloud. With the strength of AWS technology, all of AWS resources of this project are managed and deployed by CloudFormation, by that, resources are managed clearly, increase quality and shorten the release time, and receive many compliments from customer.

The trend of DevOps is gradually growing, IaC in general and AWS CloudFormation in particular will become more popular. We have already programmed to create software application, now we program to create infrastructure.

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Source: POTATO Tech Mag

Author Nguyen Huynh Anh Phi