80 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
80 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "intro"
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page_title: "Introduction"
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sidebar_current: "what"
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description: |-
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Welcome to the intro guide to Terraform! This guide is the best place to start with Terraform. We cover what Terraform is, what problems it can solve, how it compares to existing software, and contains a quick start for using Terraform.
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---
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# Introduction to Terraform
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Welcome to the intro guide to Terraform! This guide is the best
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place to start with Terraform. We cover what Terraform is, what
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problems it can solve, how it compares to existing software,
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and contains a quick start for using Terraform.
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If you are already familiar with the basics of Terraform, the
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[documentation](/docs/index.html) provides a better reference
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guide for all available features as well as internals.
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## What is Terraform?
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Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure
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safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service
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providers as well as custom in-house solutions.
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Configuration files describe to Terraform the components needed to
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run a single application or your entire datacenter.
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Terraform generates an execution plan describing
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what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the
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described infrastructure. As the configuration changes, Terraform is able
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to determine what changed and create incremental execution plans which
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can be applied.
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The infrastructure Terraform can manage includes
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low-level components such as
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compute instances, storage, and networking, as well as high-level
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components such as DNS entries, SaaS features, etc.
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<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h970ZBgKINg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="315" ></iframe>
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Examples work best to showcase Terraform. Please see the
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[use cases](/intro/use-cases.html).
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The key features of Terraform are:
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### Infrastructure as Code
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Infrastructure is described using a high-level configuration syntax. This allows
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a blueprint of your datacenter to be versioned and treated as you would any
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other code. Additionally, infrastructure can be shared and re-used.
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### Execution Plans
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Terraform has a "planning" step where it generates an _execution plan_. The
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execution plan shows what Terraform will do when you call apply. This lets you
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avoid any surprises when Terraform manipulates infrastructure.
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### Resource Graph
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Terraform builds a graph of all your resources, and parallelizes the creation
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and modification of any non-dependent resources. Because of this, Terraform
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builds infrastructure as efficiently as possible, and operators get insight into
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dependencies in their infrastructure.
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### Change Automation
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Complex changesets can be applied to your infrastructure with minimal human
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interaction. With the previously mentioned execution plan and resource graph,
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you know exactly what Terraform will change and in what order, avoiding many
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possible human errors.
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## Next Steps
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See the page on [Terraform use cases](/intro/use-cases.html) to see the
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multiple ways Terraform can be used. Then see
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[how Terraform compares to other software](/intro/vs/index.html)
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to see how it fits into your existing infrastructure. Finally, continue onwards with
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the [Terraform: Get Started](https://learn.hashicorp.com/collections/terraform/aws-get-started?utm_source=WEBSITE&utm_medium=WEB_IO&utm_offer=ARTICLE_PAGE&utm_content=DOCS) collection on HashiCorp Learn to use
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Terraform to manage real infrastructure and to see how it works.
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