back to article What on Earth is Terraform: Life support for explorers of terrifying alien worlds

Terraform is taking over as one of the critical new technologies for managing composable infrastructure both in and out of the cloud. Where does it fit in a world with Docker, Kubernetes, Puppet and other tools that all seem to be important elements in this space? Terraform is an open source infrastructure automation tool …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too much thrashing around.....

    ....to expect any IT shop to keep up. The tools to do all of these different things are changing so fast that no reasonably IT shop can keep up with them. It feels like human nature wants to pick something and do it but everything that's out there seems to only deliver 80% of what you really want and you still have to cobble a bunch of things to make it work. If you don't do that, you're locked in to places like AWS and you get the benefits of paying even more for something you could do yourself if we didn't all suffer from extreme automation A.D.D.

    At this point the old mainframe guys are starting to look smart again.

    1. Tom 38

      Re: Too much thrashing around.....

      I don't think there is that much to grasp:

      * vagrant builds your VMs

      * terraform creates provider agnostic infrastructure to run those VMs

      * apps are developed to run inside docker

      * kubernetes is used to manage deployment of containers, and to make the services provided by those containers available

      * Puppet/chef/Ansible are less relevant these days; deploy new containers/vms rather than update existing ones, and docker is used to compose container images

      If you are a sysadmin, you are using vagrant to produce some images to run kubernetes, terraform to build the infrastructure that will actually run it, and kubernetes to manage that running infrastructure. If you are a developer, you are using docker to build and package your application (ideally from CI), and kubernetes to release/rollback. (And obviously, if you are doing devops, its a bit of both)

      vagrant is less important these days, because most VMs are simply kubenetes nodes rather than specific application VMs

      1. Paul Kinsler

        Re: vagrant builds your VMs

        Some people might consider getting a vagrant to build your VMs an outsourcing step too far.

      2. tristanmorgan

        Re: Too much thrashing around.....

        I’ve used Terraform in anger quite a bit now and the fact you can just as easily run it locally as in a CI platform is just brilliant. Even used it to configure Vault. As for Vagrant, I just skip it for test-kitchen (with ec2 or docker).

      3. wheelybird

        Re: Too much thrashing around.....

        Quite an over-complicated setup you've got yourself there!

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Rapid Rabid Revolutionary Evolutionary Concept Trackers ..... AIMinders, Mentors and Monitors.

    AI Provided Hosting Infrastructure Creators are a whole new LOVE Plane of ReMastered Organisation for the likes of a Hashicorp Consul to Server with/in Commands and Controls for Practical Presentations of Virtual Realisation of Live Operational Virtual Environment Instances. ...... such as Future 0Day Exploitations and Expeditions Remotely Directing Life Choices and Courses for Terrestrial Formations and Humanities.

    The Great Unwashed Masses with their Ignorant Arrogant Herders never had IT So Good.

    Don't be a Prize Fool and Sub-Prime Tool and not think that such AI Servering is Currently Floated to and Pounding Compounding Ponzi Market Places/Rich Papered Monied Spaces ....... and the Feedback in its Treatment is Revealing of Everything that Needs to be Presently Known for Future Seeds with Immaculate Feeds.

    Thanks for the heads up on A.N.Others and developments in that novel organisational space, TP. It is much appreciated.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's quite simple

    Vagrant is Terraform for developers. Terraform is Vagrant for sysadmins. Packer is Chef for Docker. I hope that clears things up!

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: It's quite simple

      Vagrant is Terraform for developers. Terraform is Vagrant for sysadmins. Packer is Chef for Docker. I hope that clears things up! .... Anonymous Coward

      That be Spooky Peaky Blinders, AC, in an Alternate See with Armies of Free Volunteers.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        IT's quite simply complex

        And Honest and Honourable to AIDefault? Certainly, and Naturally Super-Natural ...... MkUltra Sensitive and Perfectly Sensible.

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