What Is Terraform Cloud?

Terraform Cloud, developed by HashiCorp, is a cloud service designed to help teams use Terraform efficiently and collaboratively in a cloud environment. It enhances the functionality of Terraform, an open-source tool used for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently, by providing a managed service that orchestrates the Terraform execution process remotely, making it easier for teams to manage and collaborate on infrastructure projects.

Overview and Key Features

Terraform Cloud offers a suite of features designed to support the needs of teams working on infrastructure as code (IaC) projects, ranging from small teams just getting started with Terraform to large enterprises managing complex infrastructure requirements.

• Workspaces: Workspaces in Terraform Cloud are environments where Terraform configurations are stored and executed. They help in managing and organizing infrastructure projects, making it easy for teams to collaborate on and maintain their infrastructure.
• State Management: Terraform Cloud provides secure, remote state storage, essential for team collaboration and history tracking. It ensures that the state of your infrastructure is consistently tracked and managed across all team members and pipelines.
• VCS Integration: Integration with Version Control Systems (VCS) like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket allows for seamless synchronization between your infrastructure code and Terraform Cloud, automating workflows and enhancing collaboration.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): With RBAC, Terraform Cloud enables teams to define who can access which resources within their organization, ensuring secure management and operation of infrastructure.
• Private Module Registry: Teams can share and reuse common configurations through Terraform Cloud’s private module registry, promoting best practices and reducing duplication.
• Cost Estimation: Before applying changes, Terraform Cloud can provide cost estimations, helping teams understand the financial impact of their infrastructure changes.

Benefits

Terraform Cloud brings numerous benefits to organizations and teams:

• Collaboration: Facilitates collaboration among team members working on infrastructure, with shared access to Terraform configurations, state files, and secrets.
• Scalability: Supports infrastructure management at scale, from single applications to complex, multi-cloud environments.
• Security: Enhances security with encrypted state files, fine-grained access controls, and detailed audit logs.
• Efficiency: Streamlines infrastructure management workflows, reducing the time and effort required to deploy and manage infrastructure.
• Compliance and Governance: Helps enforce compliance and governance policies by integrating policy as code tools like Sentinel, allowing teams to enforce custom policies on their Terraform runs.

How to Use Terraform Cloud

Using Terraform Cloud involves several key steps:

1. Sign Up and Set Up: Begin by signing up for Terraform Cloud and setting up your organization and workspace.
2. Connect a VCS: Integrate your workspace with a Version Control System to automate Terraform runs based on changes to your infrastructure code.
3. Configure Workspaces: Define variables and environment settings specific to your project, ensuring that Terraform runs are tailored to your infrastructure needs.
4. Write and Commit Terraform Configurations: Develop Terraform configurations for your infrastructure and commit them to your linked VCS repository.
5. Plan and Apply: Terraform Cloud automatically triggers runs to plan and apply your configurations, showing proposed changes before they are applied to your infrastructure.
6. Collaborate and Monitor: Utilize the platform’s collaboration features to review, approve, or reject Terraform changes. Monitor the health and status of your infrastructure through Terraform Cloud’s dashboard.

Frequently Asked Questions Related to Terraform Cloud