Preface

Infrastructure as Code has emerged as the de facto method for provisioning and maintaining cloud infrastructure. While this approach has been around for a while, it has matured and refined over the years. Initially, it followed largely imperative programming models and employed agents to facilitate change. However, with the advent of API-based cloud services, it has transformed into a primarily declarative configuration of desired states that are translated into cloud services and their configuration—of which Terraform is the gold standard.

Terraform is crucial for both application development teams, who create applications and services that delight end users, and platform teams, who empower enterprises and organizations with smooth and efficient operations. As a result, Terraform has become the preferred way for these teams to build and manage the environments that support their goals.

This book, Mastering Terraform, recognizes that to truly master Terraform, one must first have a deep understanding of the cloud services and architectures that will be automated through the use of Terraform and Infrastructure as Code. Throughout this book, the focus will be on solving real-world problems—whether by building new environments or managing existing ones—using Terraform.

We live in a multi-cloud world. That’s why each of the largest hyperscale clouds—AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud—will receive equal treatment within this book. No matter which of these clouds you plan on working with—one, two, or all of them—this book will treat you as a first-class citizen.

Another reality embraced in this book is that Terraform is not the only tool in the tool shed. Practitioners often need to integrate multiple tools to accomplish their goals. Therefore, we’ll explore three different cloud computing paradigms: virtual machines, containers, and serverless. Each has its own design characteristics, deployment mechanics, and toolchain dynamics that you need to be aware of when working with them.