Use case
Manage Network Infrastructure
Automate key networking tasks such as updating load-balancer member pools or applying firewall policies.
Challenge
Manual networking tasks
New technologies have recently emerged to help accelerate application deployment. However, legacy systems and old practices cannot keep up with the rate of change in modern applications. If an event occurs that auto-scales additional service instances, networking and security teams are often still dealing with manual ticket-driven processes that can slow solution delivery and increase the likelihood of misconfiguration.
Solution
Software-defined networking
Terraform can interact with software-defined networks (SDNs) to automatically configure the network according to the needs of the applications running in it. This lets you move from a ticket-based workflow to an automated one, reducing deployment times.
Achieving Networking Infrastructure Automation with HashiCorp Consul Terraform Sync
When talking about the “shift to cloud”, the focus tends to be on the applications. What is often overlooked is the underlying complexity and demand this puts on network teams looking for ways to improve their processes and efficiency in managing networks in the cloud. HashiCorp Consul is a service networking solution that aims to solve these challenges through a new tool called Consul-Terraform-Sync. CTS leverages Terraform and its robust provider ecosystem to achieve network infrastructure automation and reduce the need for manual processes.
Resources
Tutorials
Network Infrastructure Automation with Consul-Terraform Sync
Automate updates to network infrastructure including dynamic load balancing and firewall rules with Consul-Terraform-Sync (CTS)
Use Terraform to Register External Services
Register external services with Consul using the Terraform Consul provider.
Use Application Load Balancers for Blue-Green and Canary Deployments
Configure AWS application load balancers to release an application in a rolling upgrade with near-zero downtime.
Network Infrastructure Automation (NIA)
In this whiteboard video, Armon Dadgar shows why it's crucial — in the cloud adoption era — to use infrastructure as code not only for automating and templatizing your system's required compute and database resources, but also its networking infrastructure, such as firewalls, load balancers, routers, etc.