Day 16 - Infrastructure as Code

Introduction

• Presenter: Abhishek
• Topic: Infrastructure as Code
• Purpose: Understand the problem, use cases, and solutions related to Infrastructure as Code.

Previous Topics

• Discussed Configuration Management
• Explored Ansible
• Dynamic Inventory will be addressed in a dedicated video.

Understanding the Problem

• Scenario: DevOps engineer at Flipkart
  • Need to create compute resources (CPU, RAM, hardware) on various platforms:
    • AWS
    • Azure
    • Google Cloud Platform
    • On-premises servers
• Challenge: Managing hundreds of applications (300 applications) requires efficient server deployment.

Infrastructure Deployment Choices

• Flipkart decides to host infrastructure on AWS.
• Automate the process using:
  • AWS CLI
  • AWS CloudFormation Templates (CFT)
  • AWS CDK

Example Usage

• Developer requests 10 EC2 instances
  • Use CFT script for automation
• If Flipkart shifts from AWS to Azure:
  • Requires rewriting scripts from CFT to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates.

Migration Challenges

• Example of shifting from:
  • AWS to Azure
  • Azure to On-Premise (using OpenStack)
• Heat Templates: Used for OpenStack automation.

Hybrid Cloud Models

• Organizations may use a combination of cloud providers (Hybrid Cloud).
• Example:
  • AWS for storage services
  • Azure for DevOps services
• DevOps engineers need to learn multiple tools for different providers.

Solution: Terraform

• Developed by HashiCorp.
• Goal: Simplify learning for DevOps engineers by using a single tool (Terraform) for managing multiple cloud providers.
• Concept: API as Code
  • Allows for automation across different providers with minimal changes during migration.

How Terraform Works

• Write Terraform scripts to automate any cloud provider.
• Terraform converts these scripts into API calls for the respective cloud provider.
• Example: Writing an EC2 instance configuration will be translated to an AWS-readable API call.

Understanding API

• API: Application Programming Interface
• Allows programmatic interaction with applications, e.g., retrieving information from Google without a browser interface.

Terraform's Role

• Instead of directly interacting with cloud provider APIs, Terraform abstracts this complexity.
• Users write scripts, and Terraform handles API requests behind the scenes.

Key Takeaways

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Automating infrastructure setup using code.
• API as Code: Using APIs for programmatic infrastructure management.
• Terraform simplifies the management of cloud resources across multiple platforms.

Next Steps

• Tomorrow's class: Live examples of Terraform in action (installation, creating EC2 instances, etc.).

Closing

• Questions and feedback encouraged in the comments.
• Reminder to like the video and subscribe to the channel.