Get x-ray vision into AWS CloudFormation deployments with a timeline view
AWS CloudFormation now offers a capability called deployment timeline view that allows customers to monitor and visualize the sequence of actions CloudFormation takes in a stack operation. This capability provides visibility into the ordering and duration of resource provisioning actions for a stack operation. This empowers developers to optimize their CloudFormation templates and speed up troubleshooting of deployment issues.
When you create, update, or delete a stack, CloudFormation initiates resource-level provisioning actions based on a resource dependency graph. For example, if you submit a CloudFormation template with an EC2 instance, Security Group, and VPC, CloudFormation creates the VPC, Security Group, and EC2 instance in that order. Previously, you could only see the chronological list of stack operation events, which provided limited visibility into dependencies between resources and the ordering of provisioning actions. Now, you can see a graphical visualization that shows the order in which CloudFormation provisions resources within a stack, color-coding the status of each resource, and the duration of each provisioning action. If a resource provisioning encounters an error, it highlights the likely root cause. This allows you to determine the optimal grouping of resources into templates, for minimizing deployment times and improving maintainability.
The new capability is available in all AWS Regions where CloudFormation is supported. Refer to the AWS Region table for service availability details.
Get started by initiating a stack operation and accessing the deployment timeline view from the stack events tab in the CloudFormation Console. To learn more about the deployment timeline view, visit the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.