What are AWS CloudFormation stacks?

AWS CloudFormation stacks are fundamentally a collection of AWS resources that are managed as a single unit. This means that users can define a template that describes the infrastructure and services needed for an application, along with their configurations. By deploying resources in a stack, users ensure that they can create, update, or delete all resources simultaneously in a coordinated manner, which simplifies the management of cloud resources.

Using CloudFormation allows for version control of infrastructure, as templates can be treated as code and stored in source control systems. This capability enables developers and system administrators to automate the deployment of their applications and ensures consistency across environments. Stacks also provide the benefit of resource management through dependencies and integration, making sure that resources are provisioned in the correct order.

In contrast, while databases and load balancing are integral to cloud architectures, they do not encompass the full scope of what stacks represent. Similarly, although a framework for analytics can be part of a broader infrastructure, it does not capture the holistic approach of CloudFormation stacks in managing multiple AWS resources cohesively.