3 Reasons Why DevOps Pros Need to Learn Terraform

DevOps is a fun game, isn’t it? Deploy a storage bucket here, build out a CI/CD pipeline there, push compute resources to who knows where, and wait for it all to crash and burn. There’s nothing like sitting down on a Saturday afternoon and digging through Cloudwatch logs trying to figure out why your services blew up spectacularly. Shouldn’t there be a better way? There is.

The answer is Terraform. It’s an IaaS management application that every engineer needs to learn early in their DevOps training. Not convinced? Here are three reasons why DevOps pros need to learn Terraform. 

See also: Is the Terraform Associate Worth It?

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IaaS Version Management Done Easy

AWS makes autoscaling large, complicated infrastructure easy. I mean, comparatively easy anyway. Deploying a backend API based on Node to AWS Beanstalk is a walk in the park, but what happens when you need something more complicated or when you need to track infrastructure changes over time?

Terraform makes IaaS version management easy as pie. Since Terraform treats IaaS as code, each project in Terraform can sync with Git or your favorite version management system of choice. That means infrastructure-breaking changes can be rolled back quickly, the division of responsibility is easily split between various teams, and your infrastructure has a built-in changelog and notated history behind it. 

How to Control Costs for IaaS Resource Management

Terraform loves its graphs and charts and why not? If Hashicorp went through the trouble of supporting all those endpoints and code bases, why not gather data from them? It turns out that those graphs and charts make IaaS resource management a breeze. Here’s why. 

Terraform has its claws dug deep into everything you put into it. Do you have a VM hosted in AWS EC2, a bucket configured in Wasabi, some ML services hosted in Digital Ocean, and a few Workbooks running in GCP? Not a problem. Terraform tracks and charts all of that. So, charts and graphs are cool and all, but should you spend any time digging into them? YES! Those fancy schmancy reports in Terraform do more than keep your CIO off your back. They help identify unused and over-provisioned IaaS resources.  When your tech stack includes programmatically provisioned cloud resources, it’s very easy to forget to spin down a VM instance or dump a blob bucket if you’re no longer using it. Forgetting that type of maintenance can cost your business money, and those reports are an easy way to keep TCO down. 

The Easiest Way to Use Multi-cloud Deployments

Remember the failed Jedi contract? Microsoft almost won a $9 billion contract through the Pentagon, but at the last minute, the contract fell apart. The Jedi contract largely failed because other cloud vendors argued that the Pentagon should use a multi-cloud approach, and they weren’t wrong. It’s a good idea to split cloud resources between vendors, but that division of responsibility in the real world can be an epic pain. 

Terraform comes to the rescue again. Terraform tracks where and how IaaS resources are provisioned. Hosting an EC2 VM in AWS, a storage bucket in Wasabi, and ML compute resources in Digital Ocean is a breeze.

There’s a lot of power in utilizing various cloud vendors for different parts of your tech stack.  While most cloud vendors offer similar products, each vendor has their strengths and weaknesses. Why settle for a single vendor when you can easily use the best pieces from all of them?

Which Version Should You Use? 

Terraform is a fantastic DevOps management app. Any organization that hosts their tech stack in the cloud should be using it. There’s no reason not to, especially since it’s free. Of course, Terraform has hosted solutions, too. But that raises all sorts of questions. Which version of Terraform should your organization be using? The cloud version is an excellent choice if you need to manage your tech stack, but at the same time, using a self-hosted version might be the way to go if you need to follow specific regulations like HIPAA or HITECH. 

So, which version of Terraform should you use? If you want that answer, check out Trevor Sullivan’s Terraform Associates course at CBT Nuggets. Trevor does a deep dive into Terraform, why it exists, and what it does. As a bonus, you’ll be able to prepare for the Terraform Associate certification exam. It’s an easy way to level up your resume while making your tech stack more resilient (and earning CIO brownie points).