What's new in Terraform

Transcript

1. ©2025 HASHICORP It was 3:12 AM.
2. ©2025 HASHICORP The path to production is dark and full of terrors.
3. ©2025 HASHICORP A hero’s journey through Terraform, DevEx, and the Infra Lifecycle
4. ©2025 HASHICORP Sr. Technical Product Marketing Manager HashiCorp He/Him @DuvalKingJacob Jacob Plicque
5. ©2025 HASHICORP • Earlier that night 10:03 PM. March 2015. Overnight shift. • Patch night. 10k Servers and little old me. • I was 28. I didn’t know Terraform existed…Just knew things had to keep running. • We had a DevOps Team but, this wasn’t Devops was it? It was surviving. What Normal looked Like 10 years ago, and a lot less gray hair..
6. ©2025 HASHICORP • IaC was our first step out the door. Like Bilbo leaving the Shire. • But a lot of teams never got past that first hill. • They make a module or two, then go right back to the Shire.. • Not out of Laziness, out of Exhaustion, Fear, Unclear ROI • They start, but they never finish it. We’ve been talking about Infra as Code for over a Decade
7. ©2025 HASHICORP • Lack of support • Unclear ROI • No safety to see it through • Who’s supposed to be the hero here? • Developer pain = Catalyst Why Didn’t We Finish the Journey? It wasn’t the code. It was everything we built around it.
8. ©2025 HASHICORP • “Duct tape” doesn’t scale. • Trust in the process? Nah. • Silent chaos when things failed. Something had to change…
9. ©2025 HASHICORP • IaC Solved Repeatability, Not Delivery • The Wall: Monolithic Configs & Custom Scripts • The Goal: Clarity Over Control The Next Step: From Code to Clarity A B A B
10. ©2025 HASHICORP Call to Adventure A developer needs infra 1 The platform team gets the call 2 How do we respond? 3
11. ©2025 HASHICORP • A "simple" developer request is never simple. • Modern applications are a web of interdependent components: networking, databases, compute, security... • Managing this with separate workspaces creates drift, manual effort, and slows down delivery.. The Dragon in the Path: Application Complexity
12. ©2025 HASHICORP The Challenge The Solution Key Capabilities Taming Complexity with Terraform Stacks Managing cross-config dependencies, scaling repeating infrastructure, and replacing cumbersome custom tooling. A now generally available approach that lets you divide infrastructure into logical 'components' and deploy them as cohesive 'environments'. Coordinated Deployments, Advanced Dependency Management, and a VCS- Driven Architecture. CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS STAGE 1: ADOPTING STAGE 2: STANDARDIZING STAGE 3: SCALING
13. ©2025 HASHICORP The building blocks (a VPC, a database). Workspaces manage components Composing components into repeatable applications (dev, staging, prod). Stacks manage systems When to Use Stacks: From Components to Systems The tipping point: When you spend more time wiring workspaces together than building. Stack workspace workspace workspace
14. ©2025 HASHICORP • Coordinated Deployments: Use Deployment Group Orchestration to automate complex rollouts across multiple environments. • Advanced Dependency Management: Automatically handle "unknown values" with Deferred Changes and securely share outputs between configurations with Linked Stacks. • VCS-Driven Architecture: Manage all components and deployments as code through your existing version control system. A Closer Look: Key Stack Capabilities DEV TEST PROD Stack Terraform Stacks Con fi g
15. ©2025 HASHICORP From Friction to Flow: Solving for Unknown Values Produce a partial plan when values are unknown. 1 Continue when values become known (even for hard dependencies like with K8s) 2 Automate dependency management 3
16. ©2025 HASHICORP
17. ©2025 HASHICORP • Discover unmanaged resources across your cloud environments. • Define what to find using the new .tfquery.hcl syntax. • The query command finds resources and can automatically generate your configuration. Charting the Unknown: Discovering Resources with Terraform Search
18. ©2025 HASHICORP • Scale security & governance without slowing down. • Start with our library of 350+ pre-written policies (CIS, FSBP, etc., starting with AWS). • Provide a safe, automated path to production. The Mentor's Library - A Guide for the Path
19. ©2025 HASHICORP The Reward - What the Developer feels now “I get it now” “I’m not afraid of the platform.” “That was….weirdly helpful?” From a small fix to a profound shift.
20. ©2025 HASHICORP The Modern Hero’s Journey The Chaos/Unknown 1 A managed, auditable estate 4 Discovery & definition with tfquery 2 Standardization and Self-Service 3
21. ©2025 HASHICORP • It’s about creating belief. • Clarity connects strategy to implementation. • The platform as a partner. The real Journey is about creating belief
22. ©2025 HASHICORP Your job isn't just to provide tools, but to create a clear, guided journey. Use policy-as-code to provide the "key" that unlocks the path safely. Identify one point of friction and apply a new pattern. Use patterns like Stacks to create a single, understandable path to production. Pursue Clarity Over Complexity. Build Platforms That Tell Better Stories. Start Your Next Chapter. Frame Governance as a Mentor, Not a Gatekeeper. Takeaways
23. ©2025 HASHICORP Thank you @DuvalKingJacob speakerdeck.com/duvalkingjacob linkedin.com/in/fanaticgamer1986