We at Quintagroup have already applied Terraform in our work process as we could not stand aside the emergence of such an innovative tool. Terraform now supports many cloud infrastructure providers, for example, Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Hashicorp had as a target a shift from manual infrastructure provisioning, fixed set of sources, ticketing, and queues. Terraform approach implies infrastructure as code, diversity of providers, and self-service infrastructure. A change to multi-cloud infrastructure is a vital step forward for whole IT sphere in terms of optimization, security, and autonomy.
When and why to turn to Terraform
Terraform can be indeed applied in many cases and for various purposes. Below are the main reasons due to which Terraform is often given preference.
Terraform enables using infrastructure as code to provision infrastructure
When provisioning is done manually, there occur many challenges that hamper the workflow. In particular, manual provisioning entails reduced agility, increased risk of human error, hence, increased costs. Instead, by means of codification, Terraform minimizes the chances of human errors and boosts version control and automation. Risks and control costs then reduce while agility increases.
Multi-cloud compliance and management
Terraform allows provision and management of public cloud and cloud services with one workflow to learn, secure, govern, and audit. When tools are aligned to only a single vendor, it increases costs due to vendor lock-in, significantly reduces performance, and, due to multiple workflows, increases risks related to security, government, and audit. That is why a multi-vendor infrastructure is considered more efficient financially, more productive due to fast vendors on-boarding, and more secure due to single workflow.
Self-service infrastructure
Self-service infrastructure approach enables users to easily provision infrastructure. Introduction of Terraform entailed the resolution of several challenges related to the inability of developers to directly provision infrastructure when required: increased expenditures due to over-provision and unused infrastructure, time waste due to operators bottleneck, and increased risks due to many users managing infrastructure.
The way Terraform works and why it is advantageous
Terraform not only manages infrastructure as code but also provides collaboration, governance, and self-service workflows. Teams using Terraform get powerful workspaces and modules that enable effective work and cooperation. Companies, in turn, get the chance to secure and govern the deployment process due to successful collaboration on infrastructure as code, policy, and governance.
Infrastructure as code
Among the major advantages of Terraform is the way the infrastructure is expressed - in a form of code, which allows the desired state to be expressed in simple words that are effortlessly perceived and understood. Such easy-to-be-understood language, known as Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL), is employed to provide organization with a clear execution plan of changes to be made. Terraform is able to manage a broad range of resources: hardware, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS due to extensible providers, 160+ available providers if to be more precise.
Execution plan
Among the advantages of Terraform is its planning stage at which a team thinks up an execution plan. Such a plan then guides people involved in the workflow and clearly shows what Terraform will do when the process is launched. In such a way, Terraform prevents unexpected twists, and everyone is aware of what is coming further.
Resources management
To effectively manage resources, Terraform builds a graph of them all and parallelizes management of any non-dependent resources. What is also beneficial is that Terraform is able to manage a broad range of resources: hardware, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS due to extensible providers, 160+ available providers if to be more precise. Therefore, with Terraform, infrastructure management process is as efficient as possible.
Change automation
Any modifications can be executed with minimal human interference, which undoubtedly makes the whole process faster and less prone to human errors. Due to execution plan and automation, a user always knows what is about to happen and what consequences will ensue.
Terraform - an open-source tool to advance your work process
HashiCorp managed to bring about many changes by developing Terraform, resolved challenges that long retarded companies, and, thus, increased productivity of the IT world. We at Quintagroup already acquired experience working with Terraform and its wrappers like Terragrunt, thus, can share how to successfully apply, run, and thoroughly employ this open-source tool.
Reach us here to share the experience.