By: Joe Schulz, VP Emerging Technology
DevSecOps, getting an application from development to operations in a secure manner, includes many tools and techniques that lean heavily on automation to achieve efficiency. Add in the challenge every company is facing – deciding on a platform to get infrastructure to the cloud so applications can be delivered faster–and it’s no wonder AppDev teams are finding it difficult to make cloud deployments predictable and secure.
Orasi’s September webinar, Automate Your Cloud Infrastructure, featured longtime partner HashiCorp. With 100M+ downloads, its products are some of the most widely used for modernizing cloud infrastructure. The October session, Automate Provisioning, Compliance and Management of Cloud Infrastructure, took provisioning infrastructure on any cloud platform a step further.
Terraform Quick Take
Automate Provisioning, Compliance and Management of Cloud Infrastructure
When recapping October’s information share, it’s important for AppDev Teams to remember that they’re not alone. Every prospect and customer Orasi speaks with seems to have some sort of goal to move infrastructure to the cloud, and where they get stuck is right at the get-go: picking a cloud technology from the crowded market and then spending the time to learn its proprietary tools. In fact, AppDev teams quickly realize they might need to use a few platforms and learn each of their nuances to actually accomplish what they want.
The Infrastructure as Code (IAC) technique can help – instead of having to learn lots of tools, IAC empowers AppDev to collaboratively write common infrastructure definition code that works across multiple technologies. IAC eliminates the need for manually-built monolithic applications that don’t easily deploy to other platforms, capture tracking data or offer automatic updating. Essentially, IAC brings the structure of application development into infrastructure without locking you into just one cloud technology. This is where HashiCorp empowers companies with tools that make a tangible impact.
HashiCorp’s proven IAC approach means AppDev teams can quickly provision, secure, connect and run environments on demand using simple commands under version control. The HashiCorp architecture is completely vendor-agnostic and can be used to deploy on/across just about any cloud or virtualized platform (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Docker, Kubernetes, VMware, etc.). Orasi leverages Terraform with customers to address that exact scenario.
HashiCorp’s Terraform is an infrastructure automation, target agnostic, definition language tool for code-based deployment across more than 1K providers. Basically, AppDev teams select and use a technology that’s best for them, and Terraform seamlessly makes it work with other platforms.
Terraform further simplifies this stage of a cloud migration with its write-plan-apply methodology that can scale to any size environment. Teams write the code components, run a plan that checks current infrastructure with what they’re asking the app to do (Terraform outlines discrepancies and compliance vulnerabilities that can then be adjusted) and with a flip of a switch can apply it across whatever platforms are required. Terraform does all the translations on the back end.
It’s worth further emphasizing the MultiCloud Compliance and Management benefits here, given the intricacies of automating compliance and governance processes. When Orasi is using HashiCorp in a DevSecOps engagement, it minimizes risk with one centralized point for compliance and management and reduces costs by eliminating overspending on orphaned and over-sized resources. Orasi has found that AppSec teams really appreciate that focus on AI, automation and accuracy.
In early 2023, Orasi will dig a bit deeper into security priorities with a spotlight on HashiCorp Vault. Register now for How to Securely Manage Your Secrets in a Central Repository to learn more.
