Terraform

Why Terraform?

Terraform is my tool of choice for infrastructure-as-code, enabling reproducible, version-controlled infrastructure across multiple cloud providers. It brings software engineering practices to infrastructure management.

Key Features

Multi-Cloud Support

• AWS (primary focus)
• Azure and GCP support
• Kubernetes provider
• Countless third-party providers

State Management

• Remote state in S3 with DynamoDB locking
• Workspaces for environment isolation
• State file versioning and backup
• Import existing resources

Modularity

• Reusable modules for common patterns
• Version-controlled module registry
• Composition and inheritance
• Variable validation and typing

My Experience

CML Insights Infrastructure

I've built and maintained comprehensive Terraform configurations for:

AWS Resources

• EKS clusters with node groups
• RDS PostgreSQL instances with read replicas
• S3 buckets with lifecycle policies
• IAM roles and policies
• VPC networking and security groups
• Application Load Balancers
• Route 53 DNS records

Kubernetes Resources

• Namespaces and resource quotas
• Service accounts and RBAC
• ConfigMaps and Secrets
• Ingress configurations

Infrastructure Patterns

• Multi-environment setup (dev/staging/prod)
• Shared services layer
• Application-specific stacks
• Disaster recovery configurations

Best Practices I Follow

Code Organization

terraform/
├── modules/
│   ├── eks-cluster/
│   ├── rds-postgres/
│   └── s3-bucket/
├── environments/
│   ├── dev/
│   ├── staging/
│   └── prod/
└── shared/

Version Control

• Git for all Terraform code
• Branch protection for production
• Pull request reviews
• Automated validation in CI

State Management

• S3 backend with encryption
• DynamoDB for state locking
• Separate states per environment
• Regular state backups

Security

• No hardcoded credentials
• Use of AWS IAM roles
• Encrypted sensitive outputs
• Least privilege principles

Advanced Techniques

Dynamic Blocks

For flexible, repeatable configurations:

dynamic "rule" {
  for_each = var.security_rules
  content {
    from_port   = rule.value.from_port
    to_port     = rule.value.to_port
    protocol    = rule.value.protocol
    cidr_blocks = rule.value.cidr_blocks
  }
}

Count and For_Each

Conditional resource creation and iteration

Data Sources

Querying existing infrastructure

Terraform Workspaces

Environment isolation without code duplication

Tools & Integrations

• terragrunt for DRY configurations
• tflint for linting
• terraform-docs for documentation
• Atlantis for PR-based workflows
• Checkov for security scanning
• Infracost for cost estimation

CI/CD Integration

Automated Terraform workflows:

1. terraform fmt - Format check
2. terraform validate - Syntax validation
3. terraform plan - Preview changes
4. Manual approval gate
5. terraform apply - Deploy changes
6. State file backup
7. Notification to team