AWS Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

IaC allows you to write a script to provision AWS resources. The benefit is that you provision resources in a reproducible manner that saves time.

CloudFormation

CloudFormation allows you to provision AWS resources using IaC.

Features:

1. Provides a repeatable process for provisioning resources.
2. Works with most AWS services.
3. Create templates for the resources you want to provision.
4. Automate the creation of EC2 instances in your AWS account.

Elastic Beanstalk

Elastic Beanstalk allows you to deploy your web applications and web services to AWS.

Features:

1. Orchestration service that provisions resources.
2. Monitors application health via a health dashboard.
3. Automatically handles the deployment.
4. Helps in capacity provisioning, load balancing and, auto-scaling.

OpsWorks

OpsWorks allows you to use Chef or Puppet to automate the configuration of your servers and deploy code.

Features:

1. Deploy code and manage applications.
2. Manage on-premises servers or EC2 instances in AWS Cloud.
3. Works with Chef and Puppet automation platforms.
4. Automate installation scripts and configuration.

Important for the exam:

1. CloudFormation supports infrastructure automation using IaC.
2. Elastic Beanstalk is only used to deploy applications to the AWS cloud- it is not used to deploy applications on-premises.
3. OpsWork can deploy applications on-premises, and it also automates infrastructure management using Chef or Puppet.