I started my journey with HashiCorp Terraform in 2023 at Toolbox Tech, coming from a background with no prior experience in cloud or infrastructure. After going through a DevOps learning path focused on GCP, I was able to quickly get up to speed. My first major project involved using Terraform to build and integrate a platform for AutoAvaliar, a Brazilian company that connects vehicle sellers to buyers.

Over the last 12 months, my work has spanned both Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. Terraform has been the cornerstone of my workflow in both environments. The difference it makes is night and day. Before, deploying infrastructure meant navigating the cloud console, a tedious process of 'click, wait, click, wait.' Now, we define and deploy complex infrastructure entirely through code, which is repeatable, version-controlled, and incredibly fast.

I work at Toolbox Tech, where we provide services to clients like Embracon and AutoAvaliar. Terraform is essential in all this work, allowing us to rapidly provision infrastructure for our internal projects and for our clients.

For example, I recently worked on a project integrating Azure Kubernetes Service with Azure Key Vault. I noticed the team was creating all their key vaults manually through the console. I built a GitHub Actions pipeline that automates the entire process. Now, creating a new Key Vault is as simple as adding a configuration file to a GitHub repository, which has been a huge time-saver for them.

Similarly, in GCP, I have developed a comprehensive suite of standardized Terraform modules for a wide array of services, including Cloud Run, App Engine, Firestore, and Cloud SQL. This empowers developers: instead of manually setting up their services, they can now use a CI/CD pipeline. Once their application code is ready, the pipeline uses our Terraform modules to provision the necessary services and automatically deploy the app to production.

Ultimately, HashiCorp Terraform is an essential tool for us. It empowers us to accelerate our development cycles, reduce manual errors, and create robust, standardized infrastructure across multiple cloud providers.

Terraform has fundamentally improved our organization by:

1. Accelerating Delivery: We now deploy infrastructure in minutes, not hours.
2. Reducing Errors: Automating with code eliminates manual configuration mistakes.
3. Improving Security: We centrally manage infrastructure and avoid sharing sensitive cloud credentials.
4. Controlling Costs: The state file gives us a clear view of all provisioned resources, helping us eliminate waste.
5. Standardizing Deployments: Reusable modules ensure consistency and best practices.

The three most valuable features for me are the state file, reusable modules, and the simplicity of HCL.

1. The State File: This is Terraform's core strength. It acts as a single source of truth for our infrastructure, allowing us to track every resource, plan changes safely, and detect any manual modifications. Before Terraform, we lacked visibility into who was creating what, leading to higher costs. Now, with the state file, we have full control and can easily remove unused resources.

2. Reusable Modules: The ability to create and share modules is a game-changer. At Toolbox Tech, we build our own modules to enforce standards and encapsulate complexity. This allows developers to provision complex infrastructure, like a full CI/CD pipeline that deploys to Cloud Run and sets up New Relic alerts, without needing to be Terraform experts themselves. The public Terraform Registry is also a fantastic resource for getting started quickly.

3. HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language): The syntax is declarative and very easy to read, making it simple for new team members to learn and contribute. It's much more approachable than using a general-purpose programming language for infrastructure.

A built-in feature to generate a visual diagram or graph of the infrastructure directly from the state file would be incredibly valuable. This would allow teams to easily visualize all deployed resources and their dependencies without relying on third-party tools.

I have been using the solution for three years.

For anyone starting with Terraform, my advice is to invest time in learning the core concepts, as the official documentation is excellent and primarily in English. Also, while AI tools can help generate boilerplate code, they don't replace a solid understanding of how Terraform works, especially regarding state management. Always review AI-generated code carefully before applying it to your infrastructure.

We use the product for cloud deployments, specifically provisioning services in the cloud.

The platform's most valuable feature is the infrastructure as code aspect, which allows us to code the infrastructure part, making deployments more efficient.

One area for improvement could be the inclusion of more dedicated Terraform providers developed by the companies themselves, rather than relying on third-party developers.

Additional features could include more intuitive environment-specific configurations and possibly enhanced support for development and production environments.

I have been using HashiCorp Terraform for approximately six months.

I rate the platform's stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the platform scalability a ten out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward. I rate the process a ten out of ten.

The product can be cost-effective, especially if you use the CLI and do not require the cloud solutions provided by HashiCorp. It can be used for free, which is beneficial for small companies.

I rate HashiCorp Terraform a ten out of ten.

We use Terraform for many different use cases. The primary one is ensuring that the security policy is automatically applied to all of the resources within a cloud environment. Another one would be creating and dismantling all sorts of test labs, as well as creating a development environment. We found a way to automatically create a development environment only for the time we need. We develop the infrastructure and cloud-related tasks.

The most valuable feature of Terraform is the ability to use it as a coding language because it works in a way that's similar to other coding languages. They are able to create classes, loops, etc. If you're familiar with coding, you will not have issues with learning to use Terraform.

One thing where Terraform could use improvement would be the types of resources it supports. With cloud providers always adding new resource types, there are certain resources that Terraform does not support. It would be great if it could support those resources as well.

I have been using Terraform for three years.

I give it a ten out of ten for stability.

Terraform is very scalable. A ten out of ten. About four or five DevOps engineers use Terraform at my company.

We plan to increase its usage. I come from the security world and Terraform is very useful in ensuring that off of the resources within a cloud environment are deployed in a unified way. If you build the Terraform script once and you ask to create a different type of resource, instead of going into the Azure or AWS console and creating the resource from scratch, they use your Terraform script and ensure that all of the secured measures you've deemed necessary are built into that deployment.

I would rate the easiness of the setup a nine out of ten. It takes a maximum of 15 minutes to deploy it, but you need to write the script you want to run first, which takes more time since writing it depends on what you want to do.
I deployed it myself, but Terraform has some great, open people who contributed to the project. Specifically, the cloud part of the project had a lot of valuable contributions and made the deployment easy.

I am currently using the free version of Terraform.

My advice to new users would be to understand that Terraform works like a coding language, so you need to understand how it loops over objects in the same way that coding language loops over. objects You should turn Terraform terms into classic coding terms.

Overall, I rate it a ten out of ten.

We use this solution to make our migration plan and utilize the images of Azure, GCP, and EC2 instances for our infrastructure. We have basic applications that the bank requires, so we use Terraform to expedite the initial infrastructure preparation. We also created a couple of common modules that we can use in production, development, and test environments.

The environment is very good. That's awesome.

At present, they only support around 300 applications and services from different clouds. They should aim to support more than a thousand to stay ahead of their competitors.

The product can integrate and utilize more services from different competitors. Currently, their commands are quite similar to Kubernetes, which we use in our CI/CD pipeline. Also, they should consider incorporating Windows command line, like PowerShell.

Moreover, they should involve more technologies instead of just being providers for managing infrastructure; they could become active players in the field.

I have been using this solution for one and a half years.

The solution is pretty stable. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is easy. You just need to provide the description and the value for that particular setup. You don't have to learn or by heart remember all those commands. It's really easy. For example, if I want to create a DNS entry, I can use the data as well as resource parameters for the same.

So, that sort of flexibility allows me to use it differently, depending on my needs. When I use it as data, I can redirect my DNS to somewhere else because I'm using GCP as my service provider for my on-premise website. So, I route the incoming requests via GCP using load balancers. I use data as a resource for this. When I'm using Azure DNS, I utilize a resource command for the same in the data.

We have deployed it both on cloud and on-premises.

The solution is comparatively cheaper than the others.

If you want to stay on top, you should be involved not only in maintaining your current infrastructure but also in adapting to changes. For example, if HashiCorp incorporates certain Linux commands, it will attract more people from the infrastructure field, especially those with a Linux background.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I am using the solution on AWS to scale our operations using Infrastructure as Code.

Terraform is the most useful product for creating Infrastructure as Code. It has a lot of consistency, and we can control it in code. It provides a self-service infrastructure.

The solution helps us save a lot of costs. The product’s integrations help us a lot.

The product must improve DevOps features.

I have been using the solution for about two years.

I never had any stability issues. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

It is easy to scale the product. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.

We use other solutions for security in DevOps.

The solution is deployed on the cloud. It is easy to deploy the solution. The documentation helps us a lot.

The tool has a lot of value. It pays for itself. We save a lot of time using the automation.

The solution is fairly priced.

We're still learning how to use DevOps with our SOC. We need to improve our use cases. The tool is helpful for us to keep the same standards throughout the cloud. Currently, I'm only using AWS. I'm planning to use Azure in a few months. I would advise people to start using the solution. It is a cheap tool and saves us a lot of work. Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.

It is easy to architect cloud infrastructure using the solution. Also, its simple interface helps in developing specific scripts.

They should provide more tutorials to understand the solution's use cases. Also, they include more specific features into it.

I have been using the solution for three years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

The solution's initial setup process is straightforward. It takes a couple of weeks to complete. Once you define everything, you can start working on it right away. The deployment happens almost immediately.

I recommend the solution to others. I rate it ten out of ten.

We use the solution for three things. Firstly, to automate the infrastructure, like enabling Logpush to Datadog. Secondly, for Cloudflare AWS and Insight AWS. Thirdly, we use Terraform to create infrastructure.

It is one of the best things because now we have everything automated with Terraform. We didn't have an outage for the last three years because everything is written in a code, and every change we have made is recorded. If we didn't have a tool like Terraform, it would be extremely complex to achieve this level of maturity with infrastructure.

The state file is the most valuable feature because it helps one know what exactly one has.

The solution is complex when we use it for a loop. This is a problem, not because of the language itself, but because of how the infrastructure generally works. It's different from Python.

I have been using the solution for three and a half years.

It is a stable solution. I rate it nine out of ten.

The solution is not very scalable. I rate it six out of ten.

The initial setup is complex.

We have seen ROI with the tool's use.

I plan to use the solution more in the future. I recommend people to use it as it is the best tool in the market at the moment to create infrastructure anywhere.

I rate it ten out of ten.