Posted On: May 19, 2015
AWS CloudFormation has expanded the set of supported AWS parameter types. Parameters allow you to create templates that are customized each time you create a stack. You can now use Availability Zone, EC2 Instance Id, Image Id, Security Group Name, Volume Id, and Route 53 Hosted Zone Id as parameter types in addition to the parameter types already supported. Read more here.
When using parameter types in your templates, AWS CloudFormation can validate parameter values upfront during the stack creation and update process, saving you time, effort, and cost. Using parameter types also enables CloudFormation to show you a more intuitive UI in the stack creation and update wizards. For example, a dropdown UI of valid VPC IDs is displayed when using a parameter of type AWS::EC2::VPC::Id.
AWS CloudFormation has also enhanced the parameter UI in the stack creation and update wizards. You can now search and select an AWS resource (e.g., security group, subnet) by its ID, name, or the 'Name' tag and pass it in as a parameter value. Read more here.
For more information on AWS CloudFormation: