Terraform explained in 15 mins | Terraform Tutorial for Beginners

What You Will Learn

• How to use Terraform to automate and manage infrastructure and services
• The difference between Terraform and Ansible, and when to use each
• How to create and manage infrastructure using Terraform configuration files

Key Concepts

Terraform is an open-source tool that allows you to automate and manage your infrastructure and services. It uses a declarative approach, meaning you define the desired end state, and Terraform figures out how to execute it. Terraform is mainly used for infrastructure provisioning, but it can also be used to deploy applications and configure services. Ansible, on the other hand, is a configuration tool that is used to configure and deploy applications on existing infrastructure. Terraform and Ansible can be used together to cover the whole setup, with Terraform provisioning the infrastructure and Ansible configuring and deploying applications.

Code Examples

# Configure AWS provider and create VPC resource

This code snippet shows how to configure the AWS provider and create a VPC resource using Terraform.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, we learned about Terraform and how it can be used to automate and manage infrastructure and services. We discussed the difference between Terraform and Ansible, and how they can be used together to cover the whole setup. We also learned about the declarative approach used by Terraform, where you define the desired end state, and Terraform figures out how to execute it. The lesson also covered the Terraform architecture, which consists of two main components: the Terraform core and providers for specific technologies. The Terraform core takes input from the configuration file and the current state of the infrastructure, and creates a plan of what needs to be done to achieve the desired state. The providers then execute the plan and connect to the infrastructure provider platforms to provision the infrastructure. We also learned about the different Terraform commands, including refresh, plan, apply, and destroy, and how they can be used to manage the infrastructure.

Practice Exercise

Create a Terraform configuration file that provisions a simple infrastructure on AWS, including a VPC, a subnet, and an EC2 instance. Use the Terraform apply command to create the infrastructure, and then use the Terraform destroy command to delete it.

What Is Next

In the next lesson, we will dive deeper into Terraform configuration files and learn how to write them to provision more complex infrastructures. We will also learn about Terraform modules and how they can be used to reuse and share Terraform code.