Why does Terraform rank among the top IaC tools?

Managing infrastructure is a fundamental necessity for many applications nowadays. There will always be components that need user interaction for modification and management, even in PaaS or serverless setups. Infrastructure changes are becoming more imperative as software programs get more complicated in order to support their functioning.

Historically, tools on the command line or even user interfaces have been used to setup infrastructure. Although it is quick and simple, this frequently creates infrastructure that is difficult to duplicate or update in a secure manner. Infrastructure as code addresses these problems, but it also adds some complexity that can initially be difficult to handle. As one of the top platform-independent IaC technologies, Terraform enables users to define and manage infrastructure as code.

By using configuration files and version control, Terraform enables users to specify their whole infrastructure. It analyzes the source code and converts it into an application programming interface (API) request to the resource provider when a command to deploy and execute a server, database, or load balancer is given. Given the fact that Terraform is open source, programmers can constantly increase the tool's functionality by creating new plugins or assembling modified versions of already-existing ones.

Terraform Core and Terraform Plugins

Terraform contains two crucial parts: Terraform Core and Terraform Plugins.

Resource plan executions, resource graphs, state management features, and configuration files are all read and interpolated by Terraform Core. Core is formulated with compiled binaries created in the Go programming language. Using remote procedure calls, each built binary functions as a command-line interface (CLI) for interacting with plugins (RPC).

Resources for certain services must be defined via Terraform Plugins. This comprises initializing the libraries used to make API calls and authenticating infrastructure providers. Terraform Plugins are created in Go executable binaries which are used as either a specific service or a provisioner. (Plugins known as provisioners serve to run commands for specific resources.)

Modules

In many cases, when developing infrastructure settings or supplying them across environments, you must define the same configuration numerous times. Repetition of the same code block is wasteful and prone to error. This problem is addressed by predefined resource structures offered by Terraform Modules. Consider modules as a grouping of resources, such as variables and outputs. Instead of describing each resource individually in the configuration, users may just call the module when they need to establish a group of resources within a module. The main method for packaging and reusing resource configurations is through modules.

In Terraform, a module is a group of.tf files that are kept in a different directory from the configuration as a whole. A module's scope encompasses all of its resources. Therefore, if the user needs information about the resources that a module creates, the module must be stated clearly. To accomplish this, declare an output on the module that exposes the necessary data and permits references to that output from outside the module.

You can use prebuilt modules from the Terraform registry or make your own customized modules using Terraform. The Terraform registry has tens of thousands of free modules for various providers and use cases. However, you are most likely to come across one of the following three main categories of modules in Terraform:

-?????????The resources defined in the.tf files in the main working directory make up the root module, which is the minimum module present in any Terraform setup.

-?????????When adding resources to a configuration, a Terraform module (often the root module) can call other modules. The term child module is frequently used to describe a module that has been called by another module. This module may be used by numerous configurations and may be called multiple times inside a single configuration.

-?????????Terraform can load modules from a public or private registry in addition to those from the local disk. This enables both the usage of modules that others have published and the publication of modules for use by others. A large selection of publicly accessible Terraform modules for configuring many types of common infrastructure are kept in the Terraform Registry. If you give the correct source and version in a module call block, Terraform will automatically download these modules for free.

Use cases

Build and Depose Environments - Using Terraform, you may accelerate the testing and development phases of software. Software phases in an IT organization include development, testing, staging, and production. Every infrastructure resource and the dependencies between those resources in a given environment can be saved as code in HCL using Terraform. When necessary, this code can be retrieved and utilized to build fresh environments. Creating a precise production copy is necessary when adding a new feature to an existing environment. The stored code can then be used in Terraform to construct a different environment. The introduced functionality ought to operate without issue after deployment because the test and production code are identical.

N-tier App Deployments - Diverse levels for different uses are conceivable with multi-tier apps. A web application, for instance, requires a database layer and a separate tier for web servers. Databases are essential to the effective operation of web servers. Load balancers are also used by web servers to distribute requests among a number of servers without overtaxing any one of them. Correctly implementing dependencies is made simpler and faster with Terraform. In this situation, database deployment must occur before server deployment. Terraform can be used to add or remove infrastructure resources as needed in order to scale up or down multi-tier applications.

Multiple Clouds - Utilizing several clouds is a frequent catastrophe mitigation technique. Your system can carry on operating regularly by moving to the other cloud server if one fails for any reason. On-premise infrastructure and a hybrid environment are promoted for IT firms. By doing this, individuals build up their resistance to the unknowable and can continue to offer services. The adaptability of Terraform comes into play here. Applications may be deployed on many clouds, and everything is completed precisely and promptly. You avoid any potential human error and conserve precious labor. Additionally, you don’t need to buy cloud-specific deployment tools. Because Terraform harmonizes everything for you, you won't even realize that you are dealing with various clouds.

Additionally, in the DevOps world, competition is heating up between Terraform and Ansible, two widely used provisioning and configuration technologies. DevOps is still a common way for creating apps, so it makes sense that developers would want access to the best technologies.

Terraform vs. Ansible

Firstly, we may conclude that Terraform and Ansible are both utilized as IaC platforms because they both provide the provisioning of infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code. Both programs can also run remote commands on a freshly built virtual computer. Alternatively, both can be said to be agentless.

Users build the infrastructure, including virtual machines, databases, network components, and other resources, through orchestration and provisioning. Contrarily, configuration management automates the installation of versioned software components, as well as operating system, network, firewall, and related task settings. Both of them are open-source and work with cloud APIs. Terraform and Ansible can both be used simultaneously by developers; therefore they work better together than separately.

However, there are a lot of differences between these tools as well. The system administrator-specified end state can be achieved by Terraform thanks to its declarative approach, and it can also be corrected when modifications are made to the defined environment. The tool automatically carries out the necessary actions to attain the end state after it has been defined. Users can specify the desired state and automate the process of changing states. On the other hand, Ansible employs a hybrid methodology that combines declarative and procedural configurations. The Ansible manual gives users in-depth explanations of its methodology and explains how adding and removing resources can affect getting the desired results. When using Ansible, it's crucial to clearly state the resource requirements.

You cannot alter an unchangeable server. An immutable virtual server allows users to make modifications by destroying the previous version and replacing it with the updated version. Users can make modifications on changeable virtual servers without destroying the entire server. Terraform is regarded as immutable, whereas Ansible promotes mutability. These requirements are defaults, though, because both tools can perform mutable operations and contain items that are immutable to varying degrees.

The focus of Terraform is the infrastructure automation, which reads HCL model descriptions. The necessary environment components (such as networks, servers, etc.) are separately defined along with their connections to one another. After that, Terraform analyzes and evaluates the model, creates a strategy based on dependencies, and sends the IaaS optimized commands (Infrastructure as a Service). If neither the environment nor the plan change, repeated runs have no effect. Any change to the environment or plan, however, synchronizes the cloud infrastructure with the new plan's goal.

Picking out one of these depends on your needs and the qualities that are important to you. Choose Terraform if you want a user-friendly tool with strong scheduling capabilities and seamless Docker integration. Ansible, on the other hand, is the solution if you're more concerned about security, effective ACL functionality, and something that works well with conventional automated frameworks.

Nevertheless, you can use both of them! Ansible performs a fantastic job managing configuration and provisioning. With support for numerous providers, Terraform excels in provisioning infrastructure across various cloud platforms. The best of both worlds may be yours if you use Terraform for its orchestration capabilities, producing the resources and services you need, and Ansible for managing the configuration of your infrastructure.

Terraform is a strong IaC tool that attempts to offer the best user-friendliness/features ratio. Because it is declarative and platform-neutral, it may be used in any supported environment without being vendor-locked or requiring new platform-specific tools to be learned. Terraform's adaptable workflow and configurable choices let it be used in local contexts.

Developers also have the freedom to choose the precise implementation that best meets their needs for managing Terraform Cloud systems. Due to all of this, Terraform has emerged as one of the most effective IaC tools.

This tool is the best option for companies wishing to provide their DevOps teams more flexibility and adaptability so they can efficiently create, deploy, and manage infrastructure across all environments from a single location and with SnapStack’s resources all of this can quickly be accomplished. So, feel free to contact us at any moment, we’d be happy to help you grow.