My company uses HashiCorp Terraform for cloud infrastructure provisioning. HashiCorp Terraform is the only IaC tool we use in our company.
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A reasonably stable tool that offers high compatibility with multiple cloud providers
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are its simplicity of HCL language, its compatibility with multiple cloud providers, and its modules like the open source modules available, especially considering the fact that I work mainly on AWS. I believe that HashiCorp Terraform is one of the best products available in the market for my company's use cases. HashiCorp Terraform is also a feasible solution in terms of its availability of cloud resources.
What needs improvement?
I know a UI tool is available in the licensed version of HashiCorp Terraform. From a user's perspective, it would be great if a UI tool is made available in the open source version as well, but I don't think it may be introduced because of the high costs for it announced by HashiCorp in its licensed version.
HashiCorp Terraform can improve backward compatibility. From users' perspective, migration from one version to another is okay. The migration from an older version to a newer version is a big challenge in HashiCorp Terraform. We tried to fix the migration issues multiple times at our end and saw that some will not be compatible sometimes while, at times, certain aspects will be compatible with the new version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HashiCorp Terraform for four years. I use HashiCorp Terraform v0.12 or v0.13. I use the open-source version of the tool for my company's internal usage.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
My organization has around 30 to 40 users of the solution.
How was the initial setup?
The simplicity or complexity of the initial setup depends on the number of accounts involved in the setup phase on the cloud, along with the resources to be managed. Based on my experience, one won't find HashiCorp Terraform's setup difficult if the configuration and management are in place.
The solution is deployed on the public cloud. I know people who use the solution on private and hybrid clouds.
What other advice do I have?
For those users with their infrastructure on the cloud, I would say that Terraform is a tool they can use immediately, even though other tools like Ansible are in the market. At some point, one may feel that Ansible lacks efficiency in a cloud infrastructure, which is a difficulty one may face when using Terraform in a bigger infrastructure. I would say that the combination of Ansible and Terraform is the best.
When following complex methods, Ansible is the best option. If you do too much configuration on the standalone file, then if not today, then tomorrow you might be stranded in a situation where you might not be able to edit or modify the configuration, especially when some improvements related to certain features have to be included in the product or your product's existing portal. It will be very tough to deal with, especially when it will be a single file with thousands of clients, making it a tough job to search. So you need to make sure that code reusability is properly using in your terraform code base.
I rate HashiCorp Terraform a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
An easy-to-deploy solution that can be used for Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
What is our primary use case?
We use HashiCorp Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of HashiCorp Terraform is the custom modules. The custom modules are built for each piece, like network and security, based on how the customers are. Then, we can tie them together, centralize them easily, and build them.
What needs improvement?
HashiCorp Terraform state management could be improved to be used efficiently with multi-users. Even though there are logs, there are always issues I've seen with people manipulating the TerraForm state. We cannot work efficiently with the solution if the state is incorrect. Due to certain reasons, if I have to change some piece of some resource, I cannot change it. I have to destroy the whole thing and then build a new one.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HashiCorp Terraform for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HashiCorp Terraform is a stable solution. I rate HashiCorp Terraform an eight or nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Around 20 users are using HashiCorp Terraform in our organization.
I rate HashiCorp Terraform an eight or nine out of ten for scalability.
How was the initial setup?
HashiCorp Terraform's initial setup is simple. Especially with TerraForm Cloud, you don't have to do anything since it's a SaaS platform. Also, TerraForm Enterprise is easy to install.
What about the implementation team?
HashiCorp Terraform's deployment is very easy and doesn't take much time.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with HashiCorp Terraform.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
HashiCorp Terraform's pricing depends on the way people use it. Not everyone uses the solution the way HashiCorp recommends to use it. HashiCorp Terraform goes by workspaces, and workspaces are more expensive than nodes. The nodes are cheaper.
People implement the solution in different ways. So you can use the solution with less money and make it cheaper, but that's not the recommended way. If you use the solution according to the recommended way by HashiCorp, it is more expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I am using the latest version of HashiCorp Terraform.
I recommend users build the framework and the modules correctly right from the beginning. Then, build the workspace as recommended by HashiCorp. According to HashiCorp's recommendation, one workspace should exist per application or environment. That's how people need to build it.
Then, modularize everything and make custom modules for the organizations. Especially things that stay out of the application, like security, network, and compute, should be in separate modules. Later, they can be brought into the application.
Overall, I rate HashiCorp Terraform an eight out of ten.
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