CloudFormation and ARM Template Vocabulary (English)
Practice the vocabulary of AWS CloudFormation and Azure ARM templates: stacks, resources, parameters, outputs, and deployment language.
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In AWS CloudFormation, what is a 'stack'?
A CloudFormation stack is the deployment unit. Creating a stack provisions all the resources in the template. Deleting the stack removes all its resources. This is the key difference from manually created resources.
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What is a CloudFormation 'drift' and why is it important to detect?
Drift detection compares live resources against the template. Manual console changes cause drift — the template no longer accurately describes reality. Detecting and remediating drift is essential for IaC discipline.
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What is a 'Change Set' in AWS CloudFormation?
Change Sets are CloudFormation's equivalent of 'terraform plan'. They show what will be created, modified, or deleted before you execute the update. Always create and review a Change Set before updating production stacks.
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In an ARM (Azure Resource Manager) template, what is the 'parameters' section used for?
ARM template parameters enable reusable templates. Instead of hardcoding environment-specific values (resource names, SKU sizes), parameters are passed at deployment time — allowing the same template to deploy to dev, staging, and production.
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What does 'stack rollback' mean in CloudFormation?
CloudFormation automatically rolls back on failure by default. If a resource fails to create during a stack update, all changes from that update are reversed. This prevents partial deployments that leave infrastructure in an inconsistent state.
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How would you explain 'nested stacks' in a CloudFormation context?
Nested stacks enable modularization in CloudFormation. A main stack can reference a VPC stack, a security stack, and an application stack — each managed independently. This mirrors Terraform's module pattern.
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What is 'idempotency' in the context of CloudFormation or ARM deployments?
IaC tools are idempotent: deploying a template multiple times is safe — if nothing has changed, nothing happens. This is fundamentally different from imperative scripts where running the same script twice can create duplicate resources.
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What does 'stack policy' do in AWS CloudFormation?
Stack policies are a safeguard for production resources. You can specify which resources (e.g., RDS databases, production security groups) cannot be modified or deleted during stack updates, preventing accidental data loss.