CloudFormation :
- allows you to define the set of packages, files and operating system services through metadata in a template
- provides helper functions to interpret the metadata and act on it, installing packages, create files and staring or restarting services on the instance
Architecture
- built on the basic CloudInit functionality
- enable you to create a common, simple CloudInit startup script that is data-driven through metadata
Etc
- Integrating AWS CloudFormation with Chef
- Integrating AWS CloudFormation with Puppet
BoostrappingApplicationsWithAWSCloudFormation.pdf