WEBVTT

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Let's now talk about Terraform

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and go over some of
its features at a high level.

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As we discussed, Terraform
is a popular IAC tool

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which is specifically useful as an
infrastructure provisioning tool.

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Terraform is a free
and open source tool

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which is developed by HashiCorp.

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It installs as a single binary
which can be set up very quickly,

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allowing us to build, manage,

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and destroy infrastructure
in a matter of minutes.

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One of the biggest advantages
of Terraform is its ability

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to deploy infrastructure
across multiple platforms

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including private and public cloud,

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such as on-premise vSphere
cluster or cloud solutions

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such as AWS, GCP,
or Azure to name a few.

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These are just a few of the many
resources that Terraform can manage.

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How does Terraform
manage infrastructure

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on so many different
kinds of platforms?

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This is achieved
through providers.

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A provider helps Terraform
manage third-party platforms

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through their API.

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Providers enable Terraform
manage cloud platforms like AWS,

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GCP or Azure, as
we have just seen,

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as well as network infrastructure
like BigIP CloudFlare,

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DNS, Palo Alto
Networks, and Infoblox.

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As well as monitoring and data
management tools like DataDog,

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Grafana, Auth0,
Wavefront, and Sumo Logic.

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Databases like InfluxDB,
MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL,

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and version control systems like
GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab.

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Terraform supports hundreds of
such providers, and as a result,

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can work with almost every
infrastructure platform.

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Terraform uses HCL,

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which stands for HashiCorp
Configuration Language,

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which is a simple,
declarative language

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to define
the infrastructure resources

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to be provisioned as blocks of code.

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All infrastructure
resources can be defined

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within configuration files
that has a .tf file extension.

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The configuration syntax is easy
to read and write and pick up

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for a beginner.

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The sample code is used to
provision a new EC2 instance

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on the AWS cloud.

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This code is declarative

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and can be maintained
in a version control system,

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allowing it to be
distributed to other teams.

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We cover the HCL syntax in more
detail later in this course.

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We also have a lot of hands-on labs

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where you will be practicing
working with these files

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and gain a lot of experience
by the end of this course.

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We said that the
code is declarative,

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but what does declarative mean?

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The code we defined is the state
that we want our infrastructure

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to be in.

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That's the desired state.

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This on the right is the current
state where there's nothing.

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Terraform will take
care of what is required

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to go from the current state
to the desired state

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without us having to worry
about how to get there.

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How does Terraform do that?

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Terraform works in three
phases; Init, Plan, and Apply.

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During the init phase, Terraform
initializes the project

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and identifies the providers to be
used for the target environment.

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During the plan phase,

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Terraform drafts a plan
to get to the target state.

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Then in the apply phase,
Terraform makes the necessary changes

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required on the target environment
to bring it to the desired state.

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If for some reason the
environment was to shift

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from the desired state, then a
subsequent Terraform apply

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will bring it back to
the desired state,

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by only fixing the
missing component.

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Every object that Terraform
manages is called a resource.

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A resource can be
a compute instance,

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a database server in the cloud,

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or in a physical server
on-premise that Terraform manages.

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Terraform manages the
lifecycle of the resources

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from its provisioning to
configuration to decommissioning.

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Terraform records the state of
the infrastructure as it is seen

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in the real world
and based on this,

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it can determine what actions to
take when updating resources

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for a particular platform.

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Terraform can ensure that the
entire infrastructure is always

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in the defined
state at all times.

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The state is a blueprint of the
infrastructure deployed by Terraform.

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Terraform can read attributes

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of existing infrastructure components
by configuring data sources.

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This can later be used for
configuring other resources

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within Terraform.

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Terraform can also import other
resources outside of Terraform

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that were either created manually

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or by the means
of other IAC tools,

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and bring it under its control

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so that it can manage those
resources going forward.

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Terraform Cloud and Terraform
Enterprise provide additional features

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that allow simplified
collaboration between teams

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managing infrastructure,
improved security,

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and a centralized UI to
manage Terraform deployments.

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All these features make
Terraform an excellent,

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enterprise-grade infrastructure
provisioning tool.

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That was a quick introduction
to Terraform at a high level.

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Let's dive in and explore
all of these in much more detail

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in the upcoming lectures.