October 16, 2012 at 17:06AWS: CloudFormation now supports RDS parameter groups and accelerated EBS and RDS media
Hello, Habrasociety! 
Starting today, the description of AWS CloudFormation templates includes parameters that allow you to configure both the latest innovations from Amazon and already very ancient features that the community asked to include a very long time ago.
All RDS servers can be raised with standard settings. But there is no root access to the servers, so it is impossible, for example, to enable the ability to store procedures in MySQL RDS. For this, there are parameter groups that can be created and configured through the API or CLI.
So, earlier when raising the infrastructure through CloudFormation it was impossible to create parameter groups and start RDS there. Now AWS has included this option in CloudFromation templates as:
Moreover, the parameters are listed in the form:
Thus, it is even more convenient to automate the work of creating infrastructure with RDS. All about the feature can be found here .
Not so long ago, AWS introduced accelerated EBS media, and the week before last - the same features for RDS drives. Since then, truly incredible IO speeds can be achieved. From today, these settings are also available in CloudFormation templates. The disk description now looks like this:
Moreover, the Iops parameters will matter if VolumeType is set to io1 and not standard . Read more about these options here .
By the way, an article about autoconfiguration in AWS is already in development. It is written by my colleague, and you will be able to read it on the Habré in the near future.
Starting today, the description of AWS CloudFormation templates includes parameters that allow you to configure both the latest innovations from Amazon and already very ancient features that the community asked to include a very long time ago.
RDS parameter groups.
All RDS servers can be raised with standard settings. But there is no root access to the servers, so it is impossible, for example, to enable the ability to store procedures in MySQL RDS. For this, there are parameter groups that can be created and configured through the API or CLI.
So, earlier when raising the infrastructure through CloudFormation it was impossible to create parameter groups and start RDS there. Now AWS has included this option in CloudFromation templates as:
{
"Type": "AWS::RDS::DBParameterGroup",
"Properties" : {
"Description" : String,
"Family" : String,
"Parameters" : DBParameters
}
}
Moreover, the parameters are listed in the form:
"Parameters" : {
"Key1" : "Value1",
"Key2" : "Value2",
"Key3" : "Value3"
}
Thus, it is even more convenient to automate the work of creating infrastructure with RDS. All about the feature can be found here .
EBS accelerated media and RDS drives
Not so long ago, AWS introduced accelerated EBS media, and the week before last - the same features for RDS drives. Since then, truly incredible IO speeds can be achieved. From today, these settings are also available in CloudFormation templates. The disk description now looks like this:
{
"Type":"AWS::EC2::Volume",
"Properties" : {
"AvailabilityZone" : String,
"Iops" : Integer,
"Size" : String,
"SnapshotId" : String,
"Tags" : [ Tag1, Tag2, ... ],
"VolumeType : String
}
}
Moreover, the Iops parameters will matter if VolumeType is set to io1 and not standard . Read more about these options here .
By the way, an article about autoconfiguration in AWS is already in development. It is written by my colleague, and you will be able to read it on the Habré in the near future.