Streamline Your Infrastructure Management with Terraform Cloud: Save Time, Effort, and Gain Valuable Insights

Matías Salinas
3 min readMar 15, 2023

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Introduction:

Terraform Cloud is a powerful Infrastructure as Code (IaC) platform designed to simplify infrastructure management and streamline collaboration. It offers a range of features that save time and effort for development teams, such as a predefined execution flow, integration with Sentinel for policy enforcement, cost estimation, and a built-in module registry. We will to explore how Terraform Cloud can help businesses optimize their infrastructure management processes, and discusses its integration with popular Git services.

A Predefined Execution Flow for Increased Efficiency:

One of the key advantages of Terraform Cloud is its predefined execution flow, which eliminates the need to create custom pipelines. This built-in workflow automates the process of initializing, planning, and applying Terraform configurations, making it easy for teams to manage their infrastructure across multiple environments. By providing a consistent and streamlined approach to infrastructure management, Terraform Cloud helps teams save time and effort while ensuring that best practices are followed.

The Terraform “Pipeline” already has the plan and apply steps

Policy Enforcement with Sentinel Integration:

Terraform Cloud is integrated with Sentinel, HashiCorp’s policy as code framework, which allows organizations to define and enforce policies for cloud governance. Sentinel’s fine-grained, logic-based rules enable teams to ensure that their infrastructure complies with industry standards, security requirements, and internal guidelines. This integration allows Terraform Cloud users to validate their infrastructure configurations against Sentinel policies before they are applied, reducing the risk of non-compliant resources being provisioned.

Cost Estimation for Better Resource Management:

Terraform Cloud provides cost estimation for resources, giving teams valuable insights into the potential financial impact of their infrastructure changes. By analyzing Terraform configurations, the platform calculates the projected costs of provisioning and maintaining resources, helping teams make informed decisions about their infrastructure investments. This feature can be particularly helpful for organizations looking to optimize their cloud spending and avoid unexpected expenses.

Module Registry for Simplified Infrastructure Management:

The Terraform Cloud Module Registry is a centralized repository for reusable Terraform modules, which helps streamline the process of creating and managing infrastructure. The registry automatically generates documentation for modules, making it easier for teams to understand and use them in their configurations. By leveraging the Module Registry, organizations can standardize their infrastructure components, improve collaboration between teams, and reduce the risk of configuration drift.

Integration with Git Services for Seamless Collaboration:

Terraform Cloud seamlessly integrates with popular Git services such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, enabling teams to collaborate on infrastructure configurations using familiar tools and workflows. This integration allows Terraform Cloud to automatically trigger runs when changes are pushed to the repository, ensuring that infrastructure is always up-to-date and consistent with the latest code.

Conclusion:

Terraform Cloud offers a comprehensive solution for managing infrastructure as code, helping organizations save time and effort, enforce policies, and gain valuable insights into their infrastructure costs. With its predefined execution flow, integration with Sentinel, cost estimation, built-in module registry, and seamless collaboration through Git services, Terraform Cloud empowers teams to optimize their infrastructure management processes and focus on delivering value to their customers.

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Matías Salinas
Matías Salinas

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