Terraform on GCP (Google Cloud Platform)

• Experience working with a command line
• An understanding of cloud infrastructure concepts

Audience

• Cloud architects
• System administrators
• DevOps engineers

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides infrastructure for building applications in the cloud. Terraform, created by Hashicorp, is a tool for managing that infrastructure. The combination of GCP and Terraform make managing highly complex, production-grade servers and applications practical, efficient, and even enjoyable.

This instructor-led, live training (online or onsite) is aimed at engineers who wish to use Terraform on GCP to plan and build cloud infrastructure.

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Install and configure Terraform on GCP.
• Implement an "infrastructure as code" approach to managing private and public cloud environments.
• Create, launch, and dismantle infrastructure from within a single tool.
• Write declarative configuration files that can be managed like any other source code in a version control system.
• Quickly update configuration files for effectively responding to changing compute resource requirements.
• Collaborate with other infrastructure engineers by sharing configuration files in a common code repository.
• Improve transparency in the infrastructure procurement process.

Format of the Course

• Interactive lecture and discussion.
• Lots of exercises and practice.
• Hands-on implementation in a live-lab environment.

Course Customization Options

• To request a customized training for this course, please contact us to arrange.

Introduction

• How is Terraform different from Chef, Puppet, Ansible or Salt?
• Why not use Google Deployment Manager?

Overview of Terraform Features and Architecture

• Infrastructure as Code, execution plans, resource graphs, change automation

Terraform Workflow

• Write, Preview, Create, Reproduce, Destroy

Getting Started

• Preparing a GCP account to use with Terraform
• Initializing Terraform and building a virtual machine (compute engine instance)

Creating an Application

• Starting a project on GCP
• Initializing a sample web app

Preparing an Execution Plan

• Writing a new plan, saving, and removing .tf files

Working with Configuration Files

• Syntax overview
• Writing, version controlling, and updating

Setting Resource Dependencies

• Using the Terraform Resource Graph
• Infrastructure vs application dependencies

Deploying Infrastructure

• Previewing configuration changes
• Executing changes

Managing State

• Setting up Google Cloud Storage for persistence
• Setting up Remote State

Networking

• Setting up a firewall
• Managing subnets

Reproducing Infrastructure

• Setting up environments for an app: dev, test/qa, stage, and prod

Packaging Configuration Files as Modules

• Duplicating code with shareable modules
• Using the Module Registry to build reusable templates

Integrating Terraform into a Deployment Pipeline

• Building, deploying, and testing an application
• Importing existing external resources into Terraform

Terraform Performance Tuning

• Infrastructure monitoring and performance metrics

Troubleshooting

Summary and Conclusion