Infrastructure-as-Code refers to the practice of defining and provisioning cloud resources using code and automation scripts, thus eliminating the need for manual configurations. With frameworks like AWS CloudFormation, AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit), AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM), Pulumi, and Terraform, users can specify their desired infrastructure state in code, enabling rapid and consistent deployment of resources.However, as with any code, IaC scripts require thorough testing to ensure their correctness and proper functionality. Traditional cloud environments for testing can be expensive, slow, and error-prone due to complexities in provisioning and configuration. With LocalStack, you can leverage a local emulation of various cloud services, such as S3, DynamoDB, EKS, and more!LocalStack simulates these cloud services on a developer's machine, allowing for comprehensive and efficient testing of IaC scripts before deployment to actual cloud environments. In this video, we explain how you can use LocalStack to be more efficient and cost-effective at testing these major IaC frameworks:• Terraform• Pulumi• Cloud Development Kit• CloudFormation• Serverless Application ModelAs organizations will continue to embrace IaC, cloud emulation framework like LocalStack will play an increasingly vital role in ensuring the quality and robustness of cloud infrastructure implementations.

Tired of rebuilding your stack from scratch every time you run tests or restart your dev environment? In this episode, we dive into Cloud Pods, LocalStack’s powerful state management feature.You’ll learn how to:- Snapshot your entire LocalStack environment (services, resources, data)- Restore that exact state across machines, teams, or CI runs- Speed up test cycles and workflows- Use Cloud Pods to make testing in CI/CD faster and more reliableCloud Pods let you freeze your infrastructure in time. Perfect for repeatable tests, isolated dev environments, or onboarding new teammates.🔗 Read the companion blog post: https://blog.localstack.cloud/save-and-share-localstack-state-with-cloudpods/

dbt (Data Build Tool) helps data engineers manage data transformations using modular SQL and brings version control, testing, and documentation to their transformation logic. However, running dbt against production data warehouses like Snowflake can be slow, expensive, and risky.This session introduces a new way to develop and test dbt workflows locally using the Snowflake emulator in LocalStack. You'll learn how to: Set up a local dbt environment Configure dbt to connect to the Snowflake emulator Run and validate dbt models locally without using a real Snowflake account Iterate quickly on transformations before pushing them to productionThrough a hands-on factory app example, we’ll walk through how to use the Snowflake emulator to run dbt models on your laptop, helping you test logic, catch issues early, and reduce cloud costs.

In this video, you'll learn how you can run an Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance locally using LocalStack's core cloud emulator. Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a core service within Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides scalable and flexible virtual computing resources. EC2 enables users to launch and manage virtual servers, commonly referred to as instances. LocalStack is a core cloud emulator that allows you run EC2 instances using a Docker backend. Under the hood, LocalStack spins another Docker container that mimics an EC2 instance functionality, including other add-on features such as EBS, IMDS, and Load Balancers.For more information, check out our docs:- Install LocalStack: https://docs.localstack.cloud/getting-started/installation/- Configure an Auth Token: https://docs.localstack.cloud/getting-started/auth-token/ - Supported EC2 operations: https://docs.localstack.cloud/user-guide/aws/ec2/#operations - Supported Instances & AMIs: https://docs.localstack.cloud/user-guide/aws/ec2/#instances-and-amis Corrections:- LocalStack will no longer provide the Ubuntu 20.04 Docker AMI (used in this video) by default in the next major release. It can still be manually added.- On nine minutes & nine seconds mark, we meant 'localhost' instead of 'localstack'. To access the web server, you can hit the localhost:8000 endpoint as shown in the video.