CodePipeline

Continuous Delivery: Automating the preparation of code for release

Continuous Delivery

• Used for small incremental releases or frequent releases
• Automates code compilation, testing and packaging
• May involve human QA before final release or automated release to production

CodePipeline: Continuous delivery as a managed service.

CodePipeline

• Controls the release process through user defined pipelines
• Pipelines are created either through the CodePipeline console or using awscli
• Pipelines watch a source code repository, changes to this repository trigger pipeline action
• Pipelines are made up of stages
• Each stage consists of one or more actions
• There are actions to define the source repository, as well as instructions for testing, building, deploying and options for approval
• Pipelines can be managed and viewed in the CodePipeline console

Additional Information

You can find additional information about CodePipeline here .
For more information on CloudFormation templates see: Working with CloudFormation Templates .

When you create a CodePipeline pipeline you should do so in the context of a CloudFormation stack. CloudFormation is a service for managing the creation of Amazon resources. Resources created together are grouped in a stack. This makes it easy to see related resources in the CloudFormation console.
CloudFormation stacks are defined in template files. These files define all of the resources for your stack. CodeFormation templates contain sections for resources used in a stack and parameters to be set when the stack is created. A great way to get started with CloudFormation is to use one of the sample templates . There are instructions for trying a sample template here . This walks you through using a sample template to setup and tear down the resources necessary to run a wordpress site.