what is Infrastructure: AWS / Terraform?

AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Terraform are two key technologies used for infrastructure management in the cloud.

AWS (Amazon Web Services):

AWS is a comprehensive cloud computing platform offered by Amazon, providing a wide array of cloud services, including compute power, storage, networking, databases, and much more. AWS allows businesses to build and scale applications quickly without worrying about underlying hardware.

Key Components of AWS Infrastructure:

1. Compute Services:

   • EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Scalable virtual servers for running applications.
   • Lambda: Serverless compute service that runs code in response to events.

2. Storage Services:

   • S3 (Simple Storage Service): Object storage service for storing and retrieving large amounts of data.
   • EBS (Elastic Block Store): Persistent block storage for use with EC2 instances.

3. Networking Services:

   • VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): Isolated networks within the AWS cloud.
   • Route 53: Scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service.

4. Database Services:

   • RDS (Relational Database Service): Managed relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others.
   • DynamoDB: Fully managed NoSQL database service.

5. Security and Identity:

   • IAM (Identity and Access Management): Manage user access and encryption keys.
   • KMS (Key Management Service): Managed service for encryption key creation and control.

6. Monitoring and Management:

   • CloudWatch: Monitoring service for AWS resources and applications.
   • CloudTrail: Service for logging AWS account activity.

Terraform:

Terraform, developed by HashiCorp, is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that allows you to define and provision cloud infrastructure using declarative configuration files. It supports multiple cloud providers, including AWS, making it a popular choice for managing cloud infrastructure.

Key Concepts of Terraform:

1. Configuration Files:

   • Terraform uses configuration files written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) to describe the infrastructure you want to create.
   • These files are typically organized in .tf files and define resources such as EC2 instances, VPCs, and S3 buckets.

2. Providers:

   • Providers are plugins that enable Terraform to interact with APIs of cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc.
   • The AWS provider is one of the most commonly used providers in Terraform.

3. Resources:

   • Resources represent individual infrastructure components such as servers, databases, or networking configurations.
   • Example:

resource "aws_instance" "my_ec2" {
  ami           = "ami-123456"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}
 

• State Management:

  • Terraform maintains the state of your infrastructure in a state file. This file tracks the resources that Terraform manages and their current state.
  • The state file is crucial for performing updates and ensuring that changes are applied consistently.

• Modules:

  • Modules are reusable Terraform configurations that allow you to encapsulate and organize your infrastructure code.
  • For example, you can create a module for setting up a VPC and reuse it across multiple projects.

• Execution Plan:

  • Terraform creates an execution plan before applying changes, showing what actions will be taken to reach the desired state.
  • This plan allows you to review and approve changes before they are applied.

• Terraform CLI Commands:

  • terraform init: Initializes the working directory containing Terraform configuration files.
  • terraform plan: Creates an execution