Explore essential concepts and best practices of infrastructure as code with this quiz on AWS template basics. Assess your understanding of template structure, resource definitions, parameters, and common features used in cloud automation.
Which two data serialization formats are officially supported for writing CloudFormation templates, allowing for both human readability and automation?
Explanation: JSON and YAML are the two officially supported formats for CloudFormation templates because both are easy to read and are widely adopted in configuration management. CSV and XML are not supported by CloudFormation templates, even though some cloud tools allow XML. TXT, HTML, INI, and TOML are general-purpose file formats and are not recognized as valid by CloudFormation template parsers.
In a template, which section is used to define user-customizable settings such as instance types or environment names before stack creation?
Explanation: The Parameters section allows users to input custom values when launching a stack, making templates reusable for different configurations. Resources define the objects to be created, not customizable settings. Mappings are used to map keys to corresponding values, and Outputs provide stack-related values after creation. Only Parameters enables interactive customization.
When defining cloud resources within a template, which section must be present for the template to successfully create infrastructure?
Explanation: The Resources section is mandatory and declares the resources to be created, making it essential for successful stack creation. The Outputs, Conditions, and Metadata sections are optional and provide additional functionality but do not declare resources directly. A template without a Resources section will fail to deploy infrastructure.
Suppose you need to select AMI IDs based on the region and environment in your template without user intervention. Which section allows you to define static value lookups?
Explanation: Mappings allow templates to use predefined key-value pairs for conditional logic, such as selecting AMI IDs by region or environment. Parameters require user input, so they are not suitable for static logic. Outputs are for displaying results after stack creation. Transform is used for macro processing but not static lookups.
What is the primary purpose of the Outputs section in a CloudFormation template, such as displaying a load balancer endpoint after deployment?
Explanation: The Outputs section is designed to display important information—like URLs or resource IDs—after stack deployment. It does not set default values for resources, which is handled elsewhere. Controlling resource deployment order uses dependencies, not Outputs. Conditional resource creation uses the Conditions section.