Managing AWS Infrastructure with Terraform

Unlike a typical training engagement, this program is not simply a presentation of prepared content or scripted labs. This program is designed to place an engineering expert who has extensive experience with Terraform into a workshop setting with your teams so they can collaborate on appropriate integration. Our engineers have assisted many large organizations as they improve their DevOps practice and they bring this experience to your teams. Working together, our expert will provide a blend of technical consulting with hands-on instruction as they assist your organization in effectively using Terraform for infrastructure needs.

Course Outline

Part 1: Infrastructure as Code

In this section, we will introduce the benefits that Infrastructure as Code (IaC) can bring to organizations and how IaC fits within modern DevOps best practices.

• Motivation for Infrastructure as Code
• Applying Infrastructure as Code in DevOps
• Infrastructure as Code principles and best practices
• Benefits of Infrastructure as Code
• The case for Terraform

Part 2: Terraform Overview

This section provides an overview of Terraform concepts and vocabulary and instructs how Terraform manages infrastructure configuration in cloud environments.

• Terraform architecture
• Terraform configuration language overview
• Terraform CLI
• The lifecycle of a configuration
• Managing configuration state

Hands-on Labs:

• Using the Terraform CLI
• Setting up a Terraform project

Part 3: AWS Resources

In this section, participants will get hands-on practice using Terraform to create a simple application environment in AWS and learn the essential constructs in Terraform for defining resources.

• Resource types
• Best practices in declaring resources
• Network resources (VPC, subnet, security group)
• Compute resources (virtual machine)
• Storage resources (database)
• Local values in a configuration
• Augmenting a configuration with data sources

Hands-on Labs:

• Creating a VPC and subnets
• Adding a virtual machine into your VPC
• Adding a database to your VPC
• Using locals for replicated values
• Using a data source to read external configuration

Part 4: Terraform Programming

This section introduces programming constructs within Terraform that enable you to add more control and flexibility in defining resources.

• Data structures (primitives, maps, lists, objects, etc.)
• Types of expressions to set values
• Creating multiples of a resource
• Dynamic blocks
• Parameterizing a configuration with variables
• Outputs from a configuration
• Functions
• Handling errors

Hands-on Labs:

• Using variables in a configuration
• Getting outputs from a configuration
• Creating a re-sizable cluster of virtual machines
• Creating multiple resources through iteration loops
• Leveraging functions in your code

Part 5: Modules

This section shows how modules can be used to create reusable components in Terraform and teaches best practices in organizing Terraform code.

• Purpose of modules
• Module structure and code organization
• Invoking modules
• Module sources and versioning
• Nested modules
• Publishing modules

Hands-on Labs:

• Using an external module in your configuration
• Refactoring your code to implement a module

Part 6: Wrapping Up

This section wraps up the course with reviews to reinforce what you have learned.

• Reference material to learn more
• Course review
• Next steps