Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.10.22
Besides Ansible, Puppet and Chef, which other automation tools are common, especially from cloud providers?
Cloud platforms often recommend their own tools: OpenStack Heat, AWS CloudFormation, plus general tools such as SaltStack and Terraform.
Cloud providers like you to automate their platform with their own tooling:
| Tool | Made by | What it automates |
|---|---|---|
| Heat | OpenStack project | Orchestration of resources in an OpenStack private cloud |
| CloudFormation | Amazon Web Services | AWS resources, described as JSON/YAML templates |
| SaltStack (Salt) | originally SaltStack Inc., now part of Broadcom | Configuration management, similar in role to Ansible |
| Terraform | HashiCorp | Provisioning infrastructure on almost any cloud from one language |
The trade-off with a provider's own tool is lock-in: a CloudFormation template only runs on AWS. Tools like Terraform and Ansible work across providers, which is why they are often chosen for multi-cloud setups.
Go deeper:
What is CloudFormation? (AWS docs) — how AWS templates and stacks provision resources as one unit.- OpenStack Heat documentation — the template-driven orchestration service for OpenStack private clouds.
- Terraform (software) (Wikipedia) — HashiCorp's cross-provider declarative provisioning tool, the usual multi-cloud alternative.