Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp. It allows you to define, manage, and provision cloud infrastructure using configuration files written in a simple, human-readable language called HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language).

Terraform is used to:

✅ Provision Infrastructure: You can automatically create and manage servers, databases, networks, storage, etc.

✅ Automate Changes: Easily update and scale infrastructure without manually adjusting resources.

✅ Track Infrastructure State: Terraform maintains a state file that tracks all deployed resources so it knows what’s running.

✅ Multi-Cloud Support: Terraform works with AWS, Azure, GCP, and even on-premises services.

✅ Reusable Infrastructure: You can create modules (reusable infrastructure components) to maintain consistency across projects.

Terraform has a provider specifically for AWS (provider "aws"), making it easy to define AWS resources in your configuration files.

Some common AWS use cases with Terraform:

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}
resource "aws_instance" "web_server" {
ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"  # Example AMI
instance_type = "t2.micro"
tags = {
Name = "WebServer"
}
}

This simple script creates an EC2 instance in us-east-1.

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "example" {
  bucket = "my-terraform-s3-bucket"
tags = {
Name        = "MyTerraformBucket"
Environment = "Dev"
}
}

This creates an S3 bucket with tags.

resource "aws_vpc" "main" {
  cidr_block = "10.0.0.0/16"
tags = {
Name = "MainVPC"
}
}
resource "aws_subnet" "subnet_a" {
vpc_id     = aws_vpc.main.id
cidr_block = "10.0.1.0/24"
}

This defines a VPC with a subnet, ready for further configuration.

You can combine EC2, RDS, Load Balancers, Security Groups, and even IAM Roles into a single Terraform configuration, making it easy to deploy an entire app infrastructure.

• Automate Everything: No need to click in the AWS console.
• Version Control: Store infrastructure code in Git.
• Consistency: Reuse configurations across dev/staging/production.
• Audibility: Track changes to infrastructure easily.
• Multi-Region & Multi-Account: Easily deploy in different AWS accounts or regions.

1. Write the configuration (e.g., EC2, RDS, VPC).
2. Run terraform init (to download AWS provider).
3. Run terraform plan (preview changes).
4. Run terraform apply (create/update resources).