<p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">When it comes to any cloud environment, the question of defining and maintaining infrastructure is an ever-persistent one. With the majority of components in the cloud environment moving towards automation, the need for a tool that can automate the provisioning of infrastructure is on the rise. Terraform is a tool that can help developers with this particular concern. It is an IaC tool used for managing your cloud infrastructure. It can be an excellent addition to your AWS environment.</span></p><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">What is Terraform?</span></h2><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">At its core, Terraform is an IaC tool - IaC stands for Infrastructure as Code - developed by HashiCorp. This software tool is used in cloud environments to manage, run, and automate infrastructure tasks. As it is an IaC, your entire cloud infrastructure can be effortlessly described in terms of code. This functionality makes Terraform a popular tool among developers and cloud architects.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">The main purpose of Terraform is to provision cloud architecture. With this tool, one can automate and run infrastructure both on-premises and in the cloud. Since Terraform is cloud-agnostic, it is used as an open-source tool across multiple platforms to maintain the entirety of one's cloud infrastructure.</span></p><h3 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">How is Terraform Used Across Platforms?</span></h3><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">In the section above, it is mentioned that Terraform is cloud-agnostic. Let us take a look at what this means and how this makes Terraform an efficient tool to work with.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Cloud-agnostic in this context means that Terraform is not tied down to any particular cloud environment. The tool's flexibility enables it to work across different platforms parallel and simultaneously. For example, suppose you have different cloud resources in Azure and AWS. In that case, Terraform can be used to maintain all of these resources across the platforms at the same time.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">As Terraform is an IaC software tool, complex infrastructure, and resource management can be easily configured using this tool. Terraform modules also play a crucial role in making the tool flexible and easy to use - the standard configuration can be packaged into these modules to help reduce the complexity of your code. These modules contain reusable codes and standard configuration as files in a directory.</span></p><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Installing Terraform on an EC2 Instance: Step-by-Step Guide</span></h2><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Below are the steps you need to follow to install Terraform on an AWS EC2 instance. This example is designed for Linux OS and follows the necessary steps accordingly.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 1</strong>: Go to your AWS Management Console. Either launch a new instance or open an already running instance. You can launch an instance by finding the option in the dashboard.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 2</strong>: Once the instance is launched, click the Connect button. Now that your instance is connected, you can move to the step with SSH.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 3</strong>: From the SSH client tab, copy the ssh-i connection link. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 4</strong>: Now launch VS Code. Once you open a new terminal, ensure you are in the same directory as your <code>.pem key. </code>Now, paste the ssh-i link you copied here.</span></p><pre><code class="language-plaintext">ssh -i "yourkey.pem” ec2-user@ec2–52–87–111–121.compute- 1.amazonaws.com </code></pre><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 5</strong>: The terminal will prompt you about continuing your connection. Answer 'yes' when you can see your EC2 image.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 6</strong>: Now, you need to update your Linux instance. Use the following code:</span></p><pre><code class="language-plaintext">sudo yum update -y</code></pre><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">When it is done, you will see the completed output.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 7</strong>: Install Amazon utils using this code.</span></p><pre><code class="language-plaintext">sudo yum install -y yum-utils Now, add the Hashicorp repo to your instance. sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/AmazonLinux/hashicorp.repo</code></pre><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 8</strong>: Your environment is all set now. It is time to finally install Terraform. You can use the code given below to install Terraform on EC2 instance.</span></p><pre><code class="language-plaintext">sudo yum -y install terraform</code></pre><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Step 9</strong>: Once it is installed, you can double-check it by using:</span></p><pre><code class="language-plaintext">terraform-version</code></pre><h3 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Using Terraform in AWS</span></h3><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">One of the main reasons why Terraform is used in AWS is to streamline the various infrastructural tasks involved in the AWS cloud environment. As Terraform can be used for creating and defining tasks both in the cloud and on the premises, the tool becomes a means through which consistent workflow is ensured in the cloud. Not only can you define tasks, but you can also version, share, and even reuse these configuration files.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Developers use Terraform language to build and modify cloud infrastructure in AWS through Terraform. Once your code is completed, the tool can read and generate a plan according to your needs for provisioning the environment. As the tool is capable of adjusting and automating as per the configurations, it makes a great choice for developers to use across several platforms.</span></p><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Benefits of Using Terraform in AWS</span></h2><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Terraform is a very handy software tool for developers and cloud architects. Not only does it help in multi-cloud deployments, but it is also a great way to manage and automate infrastructure, even in multi-tiered applications. Here are some reasons why using Terraform can be a beneficial step for your cloud environment.</span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Cross-Platform Compatibility</strong> - Terraform, through numerous APIs and plug-ins, can function efficiently across platforms parallelly. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Convenient Usage</strong> - Since Terraform is IaC, it is easy to write code that can easily provision infrastructure.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Streamlined Modules</strong> - The modules help streamline code and infrastructure, improving deployment speed and reducing duplication. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;"><strong>Code Reuse</strong> - With Terraform, you can easily pack codes into modules and resume them. This not only saves time but also helps in avoiding messy code spread all over the environment. </span></li></ul><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">The Bottom Line</span></h2><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">Terraform, an IaC tool, is a software tool used by many cloud environments to manage and automate tasks in an environment. Primarily used for provisioning cloud architecture, Terraform is a great tool for AWS EC2 instances as it is code agnostic and allows cross-platform compatibility in parallel sessions. With the detailed steps in this article, you can easily install Terraform on your EC2 instance and create organized modules to streamline your cloud environment and run it better.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">Read More</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><a href="https://devopsden.io/article/how-to-install-docker-on-an-ec2-instance">https://devopsden.io/article/how-to-install-docker-on-an-ec2-instance</a></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">Follow us on</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/devopsden/">https://www.linkedin.com/company/devopsden/</a></p>