Accelerate infrastructure as code development with open source Former2

When I first started building on AWS, like most developers, I used the AWS Management Console. After spinning up and tearing down Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances manually many times, I realized that I needed a better way, so I looked to implement my solutions in AWS CloudFormation.

AWS CloudFormation is an infrastructure as code (IaC) service, which means I can use text files (JSON or YAML) to define a set of resources to be deployed without worrying about the semantics of how they are deployed. Using AWS CloudFormation helps with consistency and repeatability; however, it can take time to learn the syntax of the language and build the stack templates. Luckily, there is now an open source tool called Former2 to quickly and easily make the transition.

Former2 is an open source project that allows you to generate IaC templates (for example, AWS CloudFormation or HashiCorp Terraform) from the existing resources within your AWS account. In this article, I’ll explain how I created Former2, show how to use the tool, describe the challenges faced, and share my vision for the future.

Read more on the AWS Open Source Blog by clicking here.