# CloudFormation & Ansible

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/cloudformation-ansible/14721>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 6, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/cloudformation-ansible/14721 "2014-03-06T23:07:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![NJChoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b4bc9f/32.png) [@NJChoo](https://forum.ansible.com/u/NJChoo)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/cloudformation-ansible/14721/1 "2014-03-06T23:07:43Z")

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Just a general questions when using ansible & cloudformation…

do you just use cloudformation as stack deployment tool, and use ansible to keep the instance updated?

- basically skipping over using cloudformation to update the servers? (w/ use of cfn-init & hup)

there seems to be some overlap of responsibilities

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**Author:** ![James\_Martin2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@James\_Martin2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/James_Martin2)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/cloudformation-ansible/14721/2 "2014-03-07T16:31:58Z")

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You've got the idea. Define CloudForamtion templates as you normally  
would, defining all of your AWS resources, but leaving out the  
configuration of the servers. Use Ansible to launch the template and let  
Ansible configure your servers after the CloudFormation stack is created.

When that module was created, the Ansible cloud modules weren't nearly as  
fleshed out as they are now, so the only way to easily provision some  
resources was through CloudFormation. That is still the case with some  
things -- NetworkACL's comes to mind.

It's also useful for folks who are transitioning from CloudFormation to  
Ansible.

- James