There is a famous saying, ”Change is Inevitable”. The meaning for the same is very much clear to each one of us. But today, this modern era has advanced to a great extent. From purchasing a small item to getting the complete infrastructure designed, all is right on each ones’ fingertips. Having said this today in this post we would go one step ahead to know that all these services when getting migrated to a new server where are they saved or stored. The process that is undertaken is “Terraform”
Introduction to Terraform Services
Terraform is an infrastructure as code software tool that was created by the team of HashiCorp. Users here defines a provision data center infrastructure this at is been used by a declarative language used to configure this and known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), or optionally JSON.
The work of Terraform is to manage all major external resources. The list for the same are cloud infrastructure, private cloud infrastructure, network appliances, software as a service, and platform as a service. All this is being very much associated with “providers”. The process of the work here is entirely based on the infrastructure as code. The user can interact with the Terraform providers directly by letting them know their declared resources or by calling them data sources. Also, it would not at all be wrong in saying that Terraform services is used for declarative configuration to state the desired final state of the work. Once a user invokes Terraform on a given resource, Terraform will perform CRUD actions on the user’s behalf to accomplish the desired state.
Terraform supports a number of cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, Digital Ocean, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, VMware vSphere, and OpenStack.
Now let us proceed further and understand how this method of Terraform is being used in AWS, GCP, and Azure.
The process of programmable infrastructures is being allowed to use and manage on-premises as well as cloud-resources with the help of code. It is because rather to be with the management platforms and manual methods traditionally used by IT teams.
An infrastructure in which the code is captured is simpler and easier to manage. This can also be replicated or altered with great accuracy and all kind of benefits and advantages related to automation. This process can actually have changes and can be customized as per the use in software development.
The infrastructure that are programmable becomes very interesting and this is when the workloads of
your provision is on a hybrid cloud environment that is consisting of on-premises and public cloud resources.
There are two services that are being offered so as to allow the client to express express your infrastructure resources as code and manage them programmatically. These services are
- AWS Cloud-Formation
- Terraform by HashiCorp.
Now with this said the service has its advantages too. There are companies and enterprises who may have already been having their expertise in Terraform and will still be preferring to use their AWS resources. To accommodate that preference, Cloud-Formation allows you to use non-AWS resources to manage AWS infrastructure.
Taking it further, here are some of the phases in which we would share the details as to how the service is working all about and which is indeed a successful path too.
How it Works
The data that is being referred to as a template has the codify details of an infrastructure and is then configured at the later stage with the help of AWS cloud-formation. The only system that is supporting the largest number of the resources is none other than cloud-formation.
It is like if you as well as your resources are not yet active on the list of AWS services, then also not to worry, because cloud-formation allows in creating the resources and this is all possible with the help of cloud-formation registry.
Basically it would not be wrong in saying that the process of Terraform is not very much familiar and that is why it is not listed in any of the current supporting resources. This is where the cloud-soft has to create registry resource for it. So the naming for the same goes something like that Cloud-soft::Terraform::Infrastructure. For the purpose of communication with the Terraform server, the resource that is undertaken is Secure Shell (SSH) networking protocol.
Further, going on with the discussion the entire services of Cloud data is based on AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Consulting Partner with the AWS DevOps Competency. Since this is also a fact that migration process is not so easy and thus for this it is necessary that Cloud-soft helps businesses throughout their cloud journey by providing innovative combinations of services, software, and expertise.
Now comes the stage where there is a need and requirement to have the process of registry resource set up. So for the same what is required is some of the basic details and below mentioned information beforehand.
1.Terraform DNS hostname or IP address
2.SSH KeyPair
3. SSH username
4.SSH client private key
5. SSH port
6.SSH serve public key fingerprint
For the registry purpose there are some basic information that is required in terraform so as to create the registry and these codes are basically used in as well as considered for following AWS system managers.
● /cfn/terraform/logs-s3-b/ucket-name
● /cfn/terraform/process-manager
● /cfn/terraform/ssh-username
● /cfn/terraform/ssh-fingerprint
● /cfn/terraform/ssh-host
● /cfn/terraform/ssh-key
● /cfn/terraform/ssh-port
Now comes the stage where this service is also acting as a proxy to Terraform. To connect with the Terraform server it is necessary to have cloud formation registry and for the same the source code has already been shared earlier in this post.
Once the solution is placed and set at its place, the Cloud-Formation and Terraform files are placed in an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket.
Post this stage of the work comes the process where the launch of the files will be done in cloud formation wrapper files. This will then also be used in creating AWS server catalog products for the end users with the proper update and taking permission to get the launching work done at a higher pace and with good speed.
Either way, Cloud-Formation uses the Cloud-soft::Terraform::Infrastructure resource to communicate with the Terraform server. After that, the Terraform server manages the AWS resources, and the resource provider logs the activity into an S3 bucket.
Process followed for Custom Resource to AWS Cloud-Formation
Moving ahead one step, below are some of the basic as well necessary process that needs to be followed when working with Terraform on AWS, GCP, and Azure.
● Make sure Terraform server is available.
● Create AWS Identity and Access Management (AIM) roles.
● Install the Cloud-soft Terraform resource.
Concluding Remarks:
We are sure that on reading this blog, you would understand some of the basic details of the service and what actually it does. Do share your comment and feedback for making our areas of expertise more precise and also polishing them with more details.
