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AWS CloudFormer
Creating in AWS can performed using multiple ways:
- AWS CLI
- AWS SDK (Java/Python/JS)
- IT automation/IaaC tools (Chef, Puppet, Terraform, Ansible, SaltStack, Pulumi)
- REST API directly
- CloudFormation templates
First 3 underneath are using REST API, but using directly REST API to create resources in AWS might be cumbersome due to authentication that needs to be performed on REST API requests.
- CLI/SDK/REST API/Chef/Ansible are more of an imperative/procedural way to define infrastructure (where each step must be explicitly defined so as to create a desired state of it)
- Automation tools such as Terraform/SaltStack/Puppet/Pulumi are examples of declarative way (a definition of desired state is provided and it is up to a tool to create a desired state in AWS).
CloudFormation is declarative as well and it is up to AWS to create a desired state as defined in a CloudFormation template. Template is JSON/YAML/text file which can be accompanied with parameters to fill in template values (template can contain default values for parameters).
A template can be built directly by editing a file. However, what if resources were created in AWS Console and one would like save a current state and share it over Slack as file or check it in to git to have versioning ?
CloudFormer can be of help and while it is still in Beta (at least since end of 2018) meaning it should not be used for critical/prod enviroments, it is ideal for demo/PoC/dev purposes.