What Is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Infrastructure as Code is a method that helps in the provisioning of IT infrastructure with the help of a high-level descriptive coding language. In addition, it ensures costs control, reduction in risks, and fast response towards business opportunities and threats.
Moreover, this technology helps in improving speed and reliability along with preventing configuration drift. Given below are some of the benefits of using Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
- Faster time to production/market
- Improved consistency with less ‘configuration drift
- Ensures Faster, more efficient development
- Provides protection against churn
- Lowers cost and improves ROI
Introduction To Terraform
To begin with, Terraform is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that allows developers to use a high-level configuration language called HCL. In addition, it uses simple syntax and is capable of provisioning infrastructure across multiple clouds and on-premises data centers. Moreover, it is currently one of the most popular infrastructure automation tools available that help in deploying a hybrid cloud or multi-cloud environment. To further learn about its functioning and workings, one can visit organizations that provide Terraform online course.
Core Concepts Of Terraform
Given below are some of the core concepts of Terraform.
- Providers- A provider is just like an operating system’s device driver. In addition, it masks the details of how to create, modify, and destroy a resource.
- Resources- Anything that can be a target for CRUD operations in the context of a given provider is a resource in Terraform.
- Count and for each Meta Argument- It helps a user in creating multiple instances of any resource. In addition, “Count” accepts a non-negative number, whereas, “For each Meta Argument” accepts a list or map of values.
- Data Sources-They acts like “Read-only” resources and is usually useful for fetching parameters necessary to create other resources.
- State- It is a file that consists of all details about resources that were created in the context of a given project. In addition, it is primarily useful for providing information about already existing resources.
- Modules- It is a directory containing one or more resource definition files. In addition, it allows a user to use resource definitions across multiple projects.
- Workspaces- They keep multiple state files for the same project and it stores the generated state file. In addition, the Terraform workspace new command allows you to create a new workspace.
Benefits Of Using Terraform
There are many benefits of using Terraform over manually managing your infrastructure. It is capable of managing infrastructure on multiple cloud platforms and helps you in tracking resource changes throughout your deployments. In addition, it comes with a human-readable configuration language that allows you to write infrastructure code quickly. Above all, it allows you to share your state with your teammates securely and prevent race conditions when multiple people make configuration changes. Due to these uses, it is one of the most popular software tools in the IT sector. Thus, making it a good and promising career opportunity. There are many institutions that provide Terraform training in Gurgaon and one can enroll in them to start a career in it. Apart from these, given below are some of the benefits of using Terraform.
- Open Source- As it is an open-source work platform, it has huge community support along with contributors. In addition, it’s easy to look for plugins, extensions, and professional support no matter which cloud provider you use. Moreover, it provides constant improvement constantly along with increasing benefits.
- Platform Agonist- Terraform is a platform agonist software tool and a user can use it with any cloud service provider. It is unlike other IaC tools that can only work with a single cloud provider.
- Immutable infrastructure- This tool replaces the current configuration with a new one that accounts for the change whenever there is a change in the environment. In addition, immutable infrastructure eliminates the risk of configuration drift that is very common with Mutable Infrastructure.
Conclusion:
Terraform is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that helps in managing the entire lifecycle of infrastructure. It allows a user to collaborate with the infrastructure along with connecting Terraform Cloud to version control systems (VCSs) like GitHub and GitLab. In conclusion, it has an immutable infrastructure and a user can use it with any cloud service provider.
