Using Amazon ECS with AWS CloudFormation

Amazon ECS is integrated with AWS CloudFormation, a service that you can use to model and set up AWS resources with templates that you define. AWS CloudFormation uses templates that are either a YAML or JSON formatted text file. Templates are like blueprints for the AWS resource you want to create. When you create and submit a template, AWS CloudFormation creates a stack. You manage the resources you defined in your template thought the stack. When you want to create, update, or delete a resource, you create, update, or delete the stack that was created from that resource. When it comes to updating your stacks, you need to create a change set first. Change sets show you what is impacted by the change before you make it. This keeps you from deleting databases accidently by changing your database name, for example. For more information on templates, stacks, and change sets, see How AWS CloudFormation works in the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.

By using AWS CloudFormation, you can spend less time creating and managing your resources and infrastructure. You can create a template that describes all the AWS resources that you want, such as Amazon ECS clusters, task definitions, services. Then, AWS CloudFormation takes care of provisioning and configuring those resources for you.

AWS CloudFormation also allows you to reuse your template to set up your Amazon ECS resources in a consistent and repeatable manner. You describe your resources one time and then provision the same resources again across multiple AWS accounts and AWS Regions.

AWS CloudFormation templates can be used with both the AWS Management Console or the AWS Command Line Interface to create resources.

To learn more about AWS CloudFormation, see the following resources: