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Step 12: Prepare for Cleanup - LocalGov Drupal Walkthrough

Know how to delete your stack when you’re finished

Walkthrough progress

Step 12 of 12 • 3 minutes

Step 12 3 minutes

Prepare for Cleanup

Learn how to delete your CloudFormation stack and understand the costs involved.

Expected outcome

  • You understand the auto-cleanup behaviour
  • You know how to manually delete the stack
  • You understand the costs involved

Automatic cleanup

Good news: your deployment is configured to auto-delete after 2 hours. This means:

  • You do not need to remember to clean up
  • No surprise AWS bills if you forget about it
  • Resources are automatically removed after the demo period

When does the 2 hours start? The timer begins when the CloudFormation stack reaches CREATE_COMPLETE status. So if deployment took 15 minutes, you have roughly 1 hour 45 minutes from when you first logged in.

Using NDX:Try? If you accessed this scenario through NDX:Try, your stack will be automatically deleted at the end of your session. You do not need to do anything - just close the browser when you're finished.

Manual cleanup

If you want to delete the stack early (to stop costs immediately), follow these steps:

  1. Open CloudFormation console

    Go to CloudFormation console in us-east-1 (opens in new tab)

  2. Find your stack

    Look for LocalGovDrupalStack

  3. Select the stack

    Click the checkbox next to your stack name

  4. Click "Delete"

    Click the "Delete" button in the top right

  5. Confirm deletion

    Click "Delete" in the confirmation dialog

  6. Wait for deletion to complete

    This typically takes 5-10 minutes. The status will change to DELETE_IN_PROGRESS, then the stack will disappear from the list.

AWS CloudFormation console showing the LocalGovDrupalStack selected with radio button, and the Delete button enabled in the toolbar
Select your stack using the radio button to enable the Delete button
CloudFormation delete confirmation dialog asking 'Delete stack LocalGovDrupalStack permanently?' with Cancel and Delete buttons
The confirmation dialog warns that deletion is permanent - click Delete to confirm

What gets deleted?

When the stack is deleted, all resources are removed:

Resource What happens
Aurora database Deleted - all data lost
EFS file storage Deleted - all uploads lost
Fargate service Stopped and removed
Load balancer Deleted - URL no longer works
Security groups Deleted
Warning Deletion is permanent. Any content you created or edited will be lost. Take screenshots or notes before deleting if you want to remember anything from your session.

Understanding costs

This deployment runs on NDX:Try, which means costs are covered by your organisation's agreement with NDX.

Typical cost breakdown (for reference)

Service Approximate cost
Aurora Serverless (2 hours) ~$0.50
Fargate (2 hours) ~$0.30
EFS storage ~$0.10
Load Balancer (2 hours) ~$0.05
Total (2 hour demo) ~$1.00

This is significantly less than the cost of traditional software demos or vendor presentations, and you get hands-on experience with the actual platform.

Need help?

If you're stuck, check the troubleshooting section or contact us.