What is Terraform? – DEV community

Cloud adoption has exploded in recent years, with more than 90% of companies now using some form of cloud service. As organizations increasingly migrate to the cloud, manually managing infrastructure becomes a chore. Introducing Terraform, one of the most widely used Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, which has become extremely popular in this age of automation. Terraform has been downloaded more than 100 million times, making it an essential resource for IT professionals and developers alike. But what exactly is Terraform, and why is it so important?

Concept of Terraform

Terraform is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool created by HashiCorp. The concept behind Infrastructure as Code is quite simple: instead of manually configuring the infrastructure, you write code to manage and provision it. Think of it as writing out scripts for your cloud resources, networks, and servers and then running that script to make everything happen automatically.

Terraform is primarily used for cloud infrastructure management, but can handle both cloud and on-premise setups. Its main strength is that it allows you to manage multiple providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, etc., through a single, unified workflow.

Why is Terraform so popular?

● Multi-cloud management: Many organizations use more than one cloud provider for different services. Terraform supports a wide range of platforms, from popular cloud providers to smaller ones. This gives companies the flexibility to mix and match resources based on their needs.

● Consistency and repeatability: Once you’ve written your Terraform configurations (the code that defines your infrastructure), you can deploy the same infrastructure repeatedly and consistently across environments (for example, development, testing, and production). This reduces errors and makes scaling infrastructure much easier.

● Version control: Because you’re writing infrastructure as code, you can use tools like Git to version and track changes. If something breaks, you can easily revert to a previous configuration.

● Efficient collaboration: Teams can collaborate by writing and modifying the same infrastructure configurations. Changes are clearly documented in the code, making collaboration between development and operations teams smoother.

How does Terraform work?

Terraform uses a simple syntax known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL). With HCL you describe in a configuration file what your infrastructure should look like. When you run Terraform, it checks your current infrastructure, compares it to the desired state in the configuration, and makes the necessary adjustments to align them. The most important steps in the Terraform process are:

● Write configurations: You define your infrastructure components such as servers, databases and networks in .tf files.

● Planning: Terraform generates an execution plan that outlines what it will do before making any changes.

● Apply: Terraform executes the plan and deploys your resources accordingly.

● State management: Terraform manages updates and changes over time by monitoring the status of your infrastructure at any time.

DevOps with InfosecTrain

Terraform is like a remote control for managing your cloud infrastructure. It’s a powerful tool that can automate, scale, and streamline your infrastructure management, whether you’re just getting started with cloud services or overseeing a large multi-cloud setup. Learning Terraform can save you time, reduce errors, and increase efficiency in how you handle infrastructure in the modern DevOps landscape.

InfosecTrain’s Microsoft DevOps Solutions Online Training (AZ-400T00-A) equips professionals with the expertise to create and implement DevOps strategies on Microsoft Azure. The course covers essential areas such as continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure as code (IaC), monitoring and security.