New CloudFormation Template – Operational Alerts and new Docs

Today, we release v3.1.x of our Free Templates for AWS CloudFormation. The highlights of the release are:

• You can now receive alerts if the infrastructure is not working with the oprations/alert.yaml template. Existing templates now have a ParentAlertStack parameter to enable alerting for the stack.
• We updated the AMIs to Amazon Linux 2017.03
• The documentation has a new home: https://templates.cloudonaut.io/

Starting with Version 3.1.0, we host all template versions on S3. The Links in the documentation reflect this change. The stable docs always point to the latest release. The latest docs point to the master branch which is work in progress. You will also find a separate documentation for each released version. Try it out: https://templates.cloudonaut.io/

Operations Alert template

This template describes an SNS topic that can be used by many other templates to receive alerts. You can add one or multiple subscribers to this topic and they will all receive the same alerts. Supported transports are:

• Email
• HTTP endpoint
• HTTPS endpoint (can be used by marbot)

To enable alerting on one of our templates (e.g. the SSH Bastion Host) you have to provide the ParentAlertStack parameter. If no such parameter exists, the template does not support alerting.

Install the template for free

Full Changelog

• [Security] Updated WordPress to 4.7.4
• [New template] Alert topic that integrates with all other templates for operational alerts via SNS
• [Improvement] Added host based routing in ECS service template
• [Improvement] Jenkins agents now get the agent label
• [Improvement] Updated to Amazon Linux 2017.03
• [Improvement] Using more than two Availability Zones if possible (vpc-3azs, vpc-4azs)
• [Improvement] Provide a fallback Email for operational alerts
• [Improvement] Moved docs to https://templates.cloudonaut.io/ and also host each release versioned on S3

Why Free Templates for AWS CloudFormation

• Speed up development and migration: reuse our templates to create complex environments for common use cases with ease.
• Rely on high-quality infrastructure templates: peer-reviewed by an expert (certified AWS solutions architect Professional) and verified with automated tests.
• All templates are production-ready. If no other limitations are documented, they are:
  • Highly available: no single point of failure
  • Scalable: increase or decrease the number of instances based on load
  • Frictionless deployment: deliver new versions of your application automatically without downtime
  • Secure: using the latest operating systems and software components, follow the least privilege principle in all areas
  • Operations: provide tools like logging, monitoring and alerting to recognize and debug problems
• Premium Support available: Get help in case of small and big emergencies and submit a feature request.

Premium Support

We offer Premium Support for our CloudFormation templates: setting up environments based on our templates, adopting templates to specific use cases, resolving issues in production environments. Hire us!