Notice: The following post was originally published on another website. As the post is no longer accessible, it is being republished here on tommymaynard.com. The post was originally published on August 30, 2019.
I work with some of the most intelligent people I may have ever met.
It seems that a good deal of these brilliant minds focus on AWS or Amazon Web Services. It’s also much of what’s important to our enterprise right now, so it’s logical. I also focus on AWS (partly). A portion of the people with whom I work use the acronym CF for AWS CloudFormation. But, that acronym is reserved for Amazon CloudFront. How do they not know this? How do I know this!? It’s of no surprise, but I see this acronym used incorrectly outside work, as well. Here’s one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54752989/aws-cloudformation-how-to-use-if-else-conditions. I won’t deny that CF does make sense. I’ll agree to that, but not alongside the consideration of Amazon CloudFront.
I’ve yet to find that single source of AWS acronyms. Or have I?
AWS has authored two PowerShell modules (one for Windows PowerShell and one for the cross-platform version: PowerShell), with the term AWSPowerShell included in the name. They are both at version 3.3.563.1 and have over 5,900 Cmdlets (pronounced, but not spelled as, “commandlets” [for those that don’t work closely with PowerShell in any form but may end up here]). There are over 6,200 total items in each of these two modules if you include the aliases. The PowerShell command naming convention best practice is to use an approved verb (the Get-Verb Cmdlet returns a list of those), a dash, and a singular noun. If more than one noun is used, developers should use PascalCase—this happens quite often. And again, this is for the non-PowerShell people in the room—if you’re out there.
Some cmdlet examples from these modules are Get-CFDistribution, Write-S3ObjectTagSet, Set-SQSQueueAttribute, and New-WAFRule. These commands work just as the AWS CLI does, in that they call an API at Amazon. As far as best practice goes, another thing both individuals and vendors often do is include a prefix after the dash, but before the noun(s) in their command names. Each of the AWSPowerShell Cmdlets I included above makes use of a prefix. There were CF, S3, SQS, and WAF. Another one of the cmdlets in these modules is called Get-AWSPowerShellVersion (AWS prefix); I’ve brought it up here before. It spits out some version text, which is all it should do. However, if you use the ListServiceVersionInfo parameter provided by this cmdlet, you can return all the services and their matching noun prefixes, as well. You can return the API Versions too, which are dates. I didn’t include those below, however.
PS> Get-AWSPowerShellVersion -ListServiceVersionInfo | Select-Object -Property Service,'Noun Prefix' | Sort-Object -Property 'Noun Prefix'
Service Noun Prefix ------- ----------- Application Auto Scaling AAS AWS Certificate Manager ACM Application Discovery Service ADS Amazon API Gateway AG Amazon API Gateway V2 AG2 Amazon API Gateway Management API AGM Alexa For Business ALXB AWS Amplify AMP AWS App Mesh AMSH AWS AppStream APS Auto Scaling AS AWS Support API ASA AWS Auto Scaling Plans ASP AWS AppSync ASYN Amazon Athena ATH Amazon Backup BAK AWS Batch BAT AWS Budgets BGT AWS Cloud9 C9 AWS CodeBuild CB AWS CodeCommit CC AWS CodeDeploy CD AWS Cloud Directory CDIR AWS Cost Explorer CE Amazon CloudFront CF AWS Config CFG AWS CloudFormation CFN Amazon Cognito Identity CGI Amazon Cognito Identity Provider CGIP Amazon Cognito Sync CGIS Amazon Chime CHM AWS Comprehend Medical CMPM Amazon Comprehend COMP Amazon Connect Service CONN AWS CodePipeline CP Amazon CloudSearch CS Amazon CloudSearchDomain CSD AWS CodeStar CST AWS CloudTrail CT AWS Cost and Usage Report CUR Amazon CloudWatch CW Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights CWAI Amazon CloudWatch Events CWE Amazon CloudWatch Logs CWL Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) DAX AWS Direct Connect DC Amazon DynamoDB DDB AWS Device Farm DF Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager DLM AWS Database Migration Service DMS Amazon DocumentDB DOC AWS Data Pipeline DP AWS Directory Service DS AWS DataSync DSYN AWS Elastic Beanstalk EB Amazon ElastiCache EC Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Amazon EC2 Container Registry ECR Amazon EC2 Container Service ECS Amazon Elastic File System EFS Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes EKS Elastic Load Balancing ELB Elastic Load Balancing V2 ELB2 AWS Elemental MediaConvert EMC AWS Elemental MediaConnect EMCN AWS Elemental MediaLive EML AWS Elemental MediaPackage EMP AWS Elemental MediaPackage VOD EMPV Amazon Elastic MapReduce EMR AWS Elemental MediaStore EMS AWS Elemental MediaStore Data Plane EMSD AWS Elemental MediaTailor EMT Amazon Elasticsearch ES Amazon Elastic Transcoder ETS Amazon EventBridge EVB Firewall Management Service FMS Amazon FSx FSX AWS Global Accelerator GACL Amazon GuardDuty GD AWS Greengrass GG Amazon Glacier GLC AWS Glue GLUE Amazon GameLift Service GML AWS Ground Station GS AWS Health HLTH AWS Cloud HSM HSM AWS Cloud HSM V2 HSM2 AWS Identity and Access Management IAM AWS Import/Export IE Amazon Inspector INS AWS IoT IOT AWS IoT Events IOTE AWS IoT Events Data IOTED AWS IoT Jobs Data Plane IOTJ AWS IoT Things Graph IOTTG Amazon Kinesis KIN Amazon Kinesis Analytics KINA Amazon Kinesis Analytics (v2) KINA2 Amazon Kinesis Firehose KINF AWS Key Management Service KMS Amazon Kinesis Video Streams KV Amazon Kinesis Video Streams Media KVM Amazon Lex LEX AWS License Manager LICM AWS Lambda LM Amazon Lex Model Building Service LMB Amazon Lightsail LS Amazon Macie MAC Amazon Managed Blockchain MBC AWS Marketplace Commerce Analytics MCA AWS Marketplace Entitlement Service MES AWS Migration Hub MH Amazon Machine Learning ML AWS Marketplace Metering MM AWS Mobile MOBL Amazon MQ MQ Managed Streaming for Kafka MSK Amazon MTurk Service MTR Amazon Neptune NPT AWS OpsWorks OPS AWS Organizations ORG AWS OpsWorksCM OWCM AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority PCA AWS Personalize PERS Amazon Personalize Events PERSE AWS Personalize Runtime PERSR AWS Performance Insights PI Amazon Pinpoint PIN Amazon Pinpoint Email PINE AWS Price List Service PLS Amazon Polly POL Amazon QuickSight QS Amazon Route 53 R53 Amazon Route 53 Domains R53D Amazon Route 53 Resolver R53R AWS Resource Access Manager RAM Amazon Relational Database Service RDS AWS RDS DataService RDSD Amazon Rekognition REK AWS Resource Groups RG AWS Resource Groups Tagging API RGT AWS RoboMaker ROBO Amazon Redshift RS Amazon Simple Storage Service S3 Amazon S3 Control S3C AWS Serverless Application Repository SAR AWS Service Catalog SC Amazon Route 53 Auto Naming SD AWS Secrets Manager SEC Amazon Simple Email Service SES AWS Step Functions SFN AWS Storage Gateway SG AWS Shield SHLD AWS Security Hub SHUB Amazon SageMaker Service SM Amazon SageMaker Runtime SMR Amazon Server Migration Service SMS AWS Import/Export Snowball SNOW Amazon Simple Notification Service SNS AWS Service Quotas SQ Amazon Simple Queue Service SQS AWS Systems Manager SSM AWS Security Token Service STS AWS Simple Workflow Service SWF AWS Transfer for SFTP TFR Amazon Translate TRN Amazon Transcribe Service TRS Amazon Textract TXT AWS WAF WAF AWS WAF Regional WAFR Amazon WorkDocs WD Amazon WorkSpaces WKS Amazon WorkLink WL Amazon WorkMail WM AWS X-Ray XR
This is the closest we have to an official, AWS acronym list that I’ve yet to find. And yes, I’ve looked.
As can be seen, the CF acronym is used for CloudFront and CFN for CloudFormation. Use whatever you like, I suppose. With my teammates, I can’t think of a time when I didn’t know it was CloudFormation due to the context. I may have lost a few valuable seconds in life rereading a few sentences a few times, but I’ve so far survived. Still, I felt like it should be mentioned, so I can say I did my part to sleep better at night. Just kidding. It doesn’t keep me awake at night.
I’ll continue to use CFN. Perhaps they’ll think it’s me.