Let’s suppose you have an automated AWS infrastructure. How can you get notifications about infrastructure issues or changes? AWS SNS might be used to send these notifications. You can’t pre-configure your environment. This process must be automated. You need to learn how AWS SNS can be automated. Automating SNS allows you to create new Topics using scripts.
You will need to learn how you can create an Amazon SNS topic using PowerShell. This article will discuss exactly how to do that. We’ll explain what an SNS subject is and how to create one with PowerShell.
What is the difference between Imperative and Declarative calls to AWS SNS
AWS offers many tools for cloud engineers. Cloud Formation is one of these tools. Cloud Formation allows organizations to define specific rules and configurations that will be used by AWS services. This is a simplified explanation of Cloud Formation. Cloud Formation can be thought of as AWS’s recipe and guide.
Cloud Formation can help you predefine how AWS SNS will be handled. These definitions must be created by businesses according to their business needs.
Cloud Formation uses a declarative approach when you create an SNS topic in AWS. Everything is already defined or declared for you if you use an imperative approach. However, an imperative approach requires that you define all rules for a SNS topic before creating it.
Although this explanation may seem a bit simplistic, it is what makes the difference between an imperative and a declarative approach. It’s basically about where and when you define parameters for AWS SNS.
What is an AWS SNS topic?
Amazon states that an SNS topic “… is a logical access point that acts like a communication channel. But what does this actually mean?
Let’s discuss what Amazon SNS does to help us understand it.
SNS is a tool that allows you to send messages via email, text message, and other means. It can be used to connect with other AWS services. Let’s say you have a bunch EC2 instances. How will you find out if one of your EC2 instances is having an issue? AWS Cloud Watch monitors your EC2 instance and can alert you via SNS if it detects a problem. This will notify you immediately.
But how does SNS know where to send the message? This is what a topic does.
An SNS topic is basically a label that identifies a group of places where messages can be sent. It’s technically a label for a set of endpoints. These endpoints could be HTTPS addresses for REST services, email addresses, or places to send a message via text.
Let’s suppose that you have multiple EC2 instances, each supplying power to different parts of your website. There are also IT admins and developers who are responsible for specific parts of the website’s infrastructure. You don’t want everyone to know about any problems with those EC2 instances. You want to only inform those who are important.
It’s why it’s useful to create different SNS subjects. Cloud Watch allows you to control who is notified about specific issues. Cloud Watch is not required to use SNS. SNS can be used in many different ways. This is just one example.
How to create an Amazon SNS topic with PowerShell
It is easy to create an Amazon SNS Topic using PowerShell. However, PowerShell must be ready to work with AWS before you can create an Amazon SNS Topic. Install the AWS Tools For PowerShell package to do this.
Two flavors are available for the AWS Tools For PowerShell package. The AWS Tools package combines a number of applets. You can choose to install only the AWS Tools for PowerShell packages you need. You can also install core package which includes all applets required to work with AWS SDK. Both are c