Automating Infrastructure Deployment for Cucumber Tests with AWS CloudFormation

Automating infrastructure deployment has become a fundamental aspect of modern software development practices, particularly in the realm of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD). One of the most efficient ways to manage and automate infrastructure deployment is by using AWS CloudFormation. When combined with automated testing frameworks like Cucumber, CloudFormation allows you to provision the necessary infrastructure to run your tests seamlessly. This blog post aims to provide an in-depth guide on how to automate the deployment of infrastructure for Cucumber tests using AWS CloudFormation.

What is AWS CloudFormation?

AWS CloudFormation is a service that gives developers and businesses an easy way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in an orderly and predictable fashion. With CloudFormation, you can use a template file to create, update, and delete a collection of resources together as a single unit (a stack).

What is Cucumber?

Cucumber is a popular testing framework that supports Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). It allows you to write test scenarios in plain English using a domain-specific language called Gherkin. These scenarios are then mapped to code, making it easier for non-programmers to understand and contribute to the testing process.

Why Automate Infrastructure Deployment for Cucumber Tests?

Automating the deployment of infrastructure for Cucumber tests ensures that the test environment is consistent, repeatable, and scalable. It reduces the manual effort required to set up and tear down the environment, thus speeding up the testing process and enabling more frequent testing cycles. This is especially useful in CI/CD pipelines where rapid feedback is crucial.

Steps to Automate Infrastructure Deployment

Define the Infrastructure Requirements
Create a CloudFormation Template
Deploy the Infrastructure Using AWS CloudFormation
Integrate Infrastructure Deployment with CI/CD Pipeline
Run Cucumber Tests

Let’s go through each of these steps in detail.

1. Define the Infrastructure Requirements

Before creating the CloudFormation template, you need to define what infrastructure your Cucumber tests require. This typically includes:

VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): A logically isolated section of the AWS cloud where you can launch AWS resources.
EC2 Instances: Virtual servers to run your tests.
IAM Roles and Policies: Permissions and roles required to access and manage resources.
RDS (Relational Database Service): If your application requires a database.
S3 Buckets: For storing test data and results.

2. Create a CloudFormation Template

A CloudFormation template is a JSON or YAML formatted text file that describes your AWS infrastructure. Below is a simplified YAML example that sets up an EC2 instance and an S3 bucket.

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Resources:
  MyEC2Instance:
    Type: 'AWS::EC2::Instance'
    Properties:
      InstanceType: 't2.micro'
      ImageId: 'ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0' # Amazon Linux 2 AMI
      KeyName: 'my-key-pair'
      SecurityGroups:
        - Ref: MySecurityGroup

  MySecurityGroup:
    Type: 'AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup'
    Properties:
      GroupDescription: 'Enable SSH access via port 22'
      SecurityGroupIngress:
        - IpProtocol: 'tcp'
          FromPort: '22'
          ToPort: '22'
          CidrIp: '0.0.0.0/0'

  MyS3Bucket:
    Type: 'AWS::S3::Bucket'
    Properties:
      BucketName: 'my-cucumber-test-bucket'

This template defines an EC2 instance and an S3 bucket. Adjust the properties according to your needs.

3. Deploy the Infrastructure Using AWS CloudFormation

You can deploy the CloudFormation stack using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Here, we’ll use the AWS CLI.

First, save the CloudFormation template to a file, e.g., cucumber-infrastructure.yaml.

Run the following command to create the stack:

aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name cucumber-test-stack --template-body file://cucumber-infrastructure.yaml

This command will create the stack and provision the defined resources.

4. Integrate Infrastructure Deployment with CI/CD Pipeline

To fully automate the process, integrate the infrastructure deployment step into your CI/CD pipeline. Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, or AWS CodePipeline can help you achieve this.

Here’s an example of how you might do this in a Jenkins pipeline:

pipeline {
    agent any

    stages {
        stage('Deploy Infrastructure') {
            steps {
                script {
                    sh 'aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name cucumber-test-stack --template-body file://cucumber-infrastructure.yaml'
                }
            }
        }

        stage('Run Cucumber Tests') {
            steps {
                script {
                    // Assuming you have a script to run your Cucumber tests
                    sh './run-cucumber-tests.sh'
                }
            }
        }

        stage('Tear Down Infrastructure') {
            steps {
                script {
                    sh 'aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name cucumber-test-stack'
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

This Jenkins pipeline script automates the creation of the CloudFormation stack, runs the Cucumber tests, and then tears down the infrastructure.

5. Run Cucumber Tests

With the infrastructure in place, you can now run your Cucumber tests. Ensure your test scripts are configured to use the provisioned resources. For instance, your test scripts might need to connect to the EC2 instance or the S3 bucket created by the CloudFormation stack.

Conclusion

Automating infrastructure deployment for Cucumber tests using AWS CloudFormation enhances your CI/CD pipeline by ensuring a consistent and repeatable test environment. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can streamline your testing process, reduce manual effort, and achieve faster feedback cycles.

If you found this article helpful and are interested in integrating Cucumber Automation Framework with AWS CloudFormation, I suggest you check out some of the other articles I’ve written for this series:

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into some of the concepts and specifics discussed in my article, feel free to reach out to me directly or as always you can checkout the official AWS CloudFormation Developer Documentation for more information.