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Terraform 101
A beginners guide to Terraform on Cisco
Stuart Traynor - Systems Engineer @sttrayno
June 2021
Agenda
• What’s a Terraform?
• Sounds good, what do I need to know?
• Now what’s this got to do with network and infrastructure
engineering?
• Terraform Cloud / Terraform CLI? What’s the difference?
• Demo / Hand—on labs
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The Network Automation Engineers Tool Chest
Source Control
Continuous Integration Artifact Repository
Network Service and Configuration Management Network Verification
Network Device Interfaces Network Controllers
Network Virtualization / Simulation Platforms
Security Services Infrastructure Services Telemetry & Monitoring
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The Network Automation Engineers Tool Chest
Source Control
Continuous Integration Artifact Repository
Network Service and Configuration Management tools enable Network
Network Service and Configuration Management
as Code and ensure the desired state of the network. Network Verification
Network Device Interfaces Network Controllers
Network Service and Configuration
Network Management
Virtualization / Simulation Platforms
Security Services Infrastructure Services Telemetry & Monitoring
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What is Terraform?
• Popular configuration and orchestration
tool, built and maintained by Hashicorp
• Started off as a cloud automation tool
• Define a desired state and Terraform works
to ensure that state is maintained
• Allows you to define infrastructure through
repeatable templates
Network and Infra and App
• Manages all resources through APIs, Segmentation Deployment
Access Control Monitoring
and
abstracted by a providers Assurance
• Terraform Open Source / Terraform Cloud
for Business
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Cisco + Hashicorp
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Terraform Fundamentals
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Terraform config file
• Resources are declared through a
series of text files in Terraforms
own configuration language HCL
• Uses text files with a .tf extension
• Can be as simple as a single file,
like so…
• You might have multiple files
including variable files (.tfvars)
• Would typically be stored in some
kind of source control
• You probably wouldn’t put
usernames/passwords like I have
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Terraform state
• The state tracks what’s been created by
Terraform
• Diff is made against the config and state to
decide which resources are to be created
• State becomes an issue when it’s large
and must be shared…
• Resources not created by Terraform
can be imported and managed
• Terraform only knows about what it’s
created, this can be a challenge
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Terraform Modules
• Goes one step further on the concept
of resources
• Rather than define multiple resources
in config we define our architecture
• Typically these are resources which
would depend on each other
• Will consist of inputs, outputs and
resources
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Terraform Programming Constructs
Count
JSON Encode
For Each
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Terraform Providers
• Providers are the plugins to Terraform that
allow us to interact with remote systems
• They define resources that Terraform can
create or data sources which it can call from
• They all use the systems API’s
• You can find a list of publicly available
providers on the Terraform registry (with the
documentation how to use them
• Providers fall into a category of: Official,
Verified, Community and Archived
• Normally written in Go
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Terraform Workflow
• Single workflow to plan, provision and teardown
resources
• Providers allow you to abstract away from the individual
processes and technology
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Ansible vs Terraform
• Very much focused towards • More focused to cloud automation
infrastructure automation • Lends itself better to API first platforms
• Modules (written in Python) • Providers (written in Go)
• Define playbooks in YAML • Define a Terraform config in HCL
• Stateless (by default) – push out (HashiCorp configuration language)
the intent of a playbook on run • Stateful – keeps a state and looks to
• Imperative ensure the config matches the state
• Declarative
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Ansible and Terraform – Simple example
Provision CSR1000v image in public cloud
Render config template to the device
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SEMCLD-2001 15
Cisco’s Terraform Providers
• Cisco Application Centric
Infrastructure (ACI) / Cisco • Cisco ASA • Cisco Intersight
Multi-site Orchestrator • Provision on-premise
• More traditional
(MSO) perimeter-based access servers and workloads
• Define network policy and control • Across bare metal, virtual
segmentation • Traditional IP based machines, containers
• Across on-premise and filtering • Manage on premise
cloud networks • Can be spun up in virtual infrastructure from a
form factor at the edge, single control point
public or private cloud
Community Providers / Build your own
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Cloud Networking – ACI and MSO
• Abstracted method of networking leans itself well to Terraform
• Extend policy from data center network to the cloud from a single touchpoint (one policy
multiple DC’s and clouds)
• Simplifies network deployment by creating reusable architecture patterns
• Allows network to be deployed in repeatable patterns
Infrastructure teams define
Terraform config for tenants,
bridge domain, subnets and As changes are made to the
reusable architecture patterns Terraform configurations by the
separate teams, they are
applied to the infrastructure
Application/DevOps team define
Terraform config for applications, EPGs,
contracts etc as required in self service
manner
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Terraform CLI / Terraform Cloud – Free vs Paid
Terraform OSS Terraform Cloud for business
Where most engineers probably will start SaaS based Terraform
off
Enterprise level support– are you going
Free, open source to run production with Terraform OSS?
Community driven
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Demo
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Summary
• Terraform is becoming an increasingly popular tool for infrastructure automation,
particularly the line between cloud and on-premise starts to blur
• As people look to adopt Infrastructure as Code principles Terraform can be a good
place to start
• Cisco has providers across the portfolio
• Get hands on, anyone can: http://github.com/sttrayno/Terraform-Lab-Guide
• DevNet sandboxes are available to support you in testing
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Documentation and Resources
Installing Terraform - https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/terraform/install-cli
Intersight user guide - https://github.com/cisco-intersight/terraform-
provider-intersight/blob/master/USERGUIDE.md
Intersight examples - https://github.com/cisco-intersight/terraform-provider-
intersight/tree/master/examples
Cisco ASA documentation -
https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/ciscoasa/latest/docs
Multi Site Orchestrator (MSO) documentation -
https://registry.terraform.io/providers/CiscoDevNet/mso/latest/docs
Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) documentation
https://registry.terraform.io/providers/CiscoDevNet/aci/latest/docs
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