Terraform Training

Terraform is an open-source software developed by HashiCorp that’s utilized as an “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC) tool. When companies and cloud services need to update and maintain their vast infrastructure, IaC tools allow them to do so safely and efficiently rather than working with each machine manually. Over the past few years, Terraform has emerged as one of the most well-known tools for IaC needs, making Terraform training, skills, and certifications more in demand than ever.

Terraform’s open-source software may be easy to find and access online, but getting the most out of its utility for IT teams and unique, scalable solutions may require expert guidance — part of the reason official Terraform certifications exist and are sometimes required to pursue certain jobs. We suggest choosing a learning path that starts with the basics for your needs, gives you hands-on experience with real-world applications of Terraform, and/or prepares you for official certifications needed for your infrastructure or specific requirements from a prospective employer. A Cloud Guru offers the courses, Hands-on Labs, and certification prep needed along with a 7-day free trial to help you get started.

While both of these are open-source softwares and considered “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC) tools, certain teams or organizations may have a preference between Terraform and Ansible. Generally, you’ll see Terraform recommended for from-scratch infrastructure setups related to cloud services, while Ansible can be preferred for ongoing automation and updates to existing infrastructure. For more in-depth information about specific uses for each of these tools, try out courses from A Cloud Guru or look into the information provided by each software’s developer.

Talk to most DevOps professionals, and you’ll find Terraform and AWS CloudFormation are two tools that are bound to come up. Both are “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC) tools that IT teams swear by for cloud infrastructure management. CloudFormation is managed by AWS, and therefore stretches across the services AWS offers. Terraform, however can work with cloud environments across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and others. In terms of starting out and ease-of-use, CloudFormation is based in the widely-used JSON and YAML languages, whereas Terraform is used in HCL (which stands for Hashicorp Configuration Language), developed by Terraform creator HashiCorp.

Each has strengths and weaknesses based on the specific needs of your cloud infrastructure, so consider your short- and long-term cloud infrastructure or cloud learning goals when comparing which of these two softwares is best to learn.

Rather than choose one over the other, many organizations can actually use Terraform and Kubernetes together for their cloud infrastructure needs. That’s because while Terraform is an open-source “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC) that helps organizations spin up and maintain infrastructure, Kubernetes is a popular, open-source orchestration system working to do things like schedule or manage workloads for efficiency. Put simply, Terraform can help manage Kubernetes, which can help manage resources within your infrastructure efficiently and effectively. Of course, for more in-depth knowledge on both Terraform and Kubernetes and how they might work with your skill learning or infrastructure needs, look to the developers and foundations that maintain these systems, or try jumping into courses related to everything from the basics through advanced uses of them on A Cloud Guru.