Exploring Terraform’s Service Ecosystem: An In-depth Comparison

Introduction

The concept of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for Terraform is slightly different than for tools like Kafka, Cassandra, and Airflow. As Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp, most “managed” aspects of it come from the cloud service providers themselves who support the integration of Terraform with their infrastructure. These providers offer services that Terraform can manage.

For example, AWS, GCP, Azure, and IBM Cloud have Terraform providers that allow users to define and provide data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language. However, HashiCorp does offer Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise, which are SaaS platforms that provide workflow and management capabilities for working with Terraform at a larger scale. There are also a few companies that offer management and orchestration services for Terraform.

Key Offerings in the Terraform Managed Service Ecosystem

1. Terraform Cloud by HashiCorp
2. Terraform Enterprise by HashiCorp
3. Scalr Infrastructure as Code & Terraform automation
4. Env0 for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) management
5. Vault by HashiCorp
6. Terraform Sentinel by HashiCorp
7. Terragrunt for additional IaC management

Terraform Cloud

• Purpose and Use Case: Terraform Cloud is HashiCorp’s managed service offering. It provides collaboration, governance, and management features for provisioning infrastructure. It’s ideal for teams and organizations looking to scale their use of Terraform.
• Supported Platforms: Terraform Cloud supports all providers that Terraform does, including major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, Azure, and many more.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: As Terraform Cloud can manage any provider that Terraform can, it integrates well with numerous data systems and tools, from cloud storage and databases to data processing services.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: With features like remote state management, private module registry, and policy as code, Terraform Cloud makes it easier for teams to use Terraform at scale. The learning curve is similar to that of Terraform itself, and HashiCorp offers excellent documentation.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Terraform Cloud is designed to be scalable and extensible, making it suitable for managing complex, large-scale infrastructure setups.

Terraform Enterprise

• Purpose and Use Case: Terraform Enterprise is the self-hosted distribution of Terraform Cloud. It’s designed for larger businesses with advanced security and compliance needs.
• Supported Platforms: Like Terraform Cloud, Terraform Enterprise supports all Terraform providers, covering a wide array of services across all major cloud platforms.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Its broad provider support allows Terraform Enterprise to integrate well with various data tools and systems.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: Although it has more advanced features and requires some initial setup as a self-hosted solution, HashiCorp’s documentation and support can help ease the learning process.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Terraform Enterprise is designed to manage large-scale, complex infrastructures. It offers the additional flexibility of being hosted in your own environment.

Scalr

• Purpose and Use Case: Scalr is an end-to-end IaC automation tool, which offers Terraform orchestration, policy enforcement, and hierarchical environment modeling.
• Supported Platforms: Scalr supports Terraform, so it works with all Terraform providers and services across major cloud platforms.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Scalr provides broad data ecosystem integration given its support for all Terraform providers.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: Scalr offers user-friendly features like a GUI for managing Terraform runs, but some learning may be needed to get the most out of its features.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Scalr is designed to handle large, complex infrastructures and to be adaptable to a variety of use cases.

Vault

• Purpose and Use Case: Vault is a tool for managing secrets and protecting sensitive data. It is used to control access to tokens, passwords, certificates, and encryption keys. It’s not a managed service provider for Terraform, but it integrates well with Terraform to securely manage and inject secrets into your infrastructure.
• Supported Platforms: Vault can be deployed on many systems, including on-premises and in the cloud, and it supports a variety of storage backends.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Vault has numerous integration points, including database secrets engines (for dynamic secrets), secret and credential storage, and encryption as a service. It integrates with major databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and more. For use with Terraform, Vault can provide secrets for your Terraform configurations.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: While it’s powerful, Vault’s high configurability can add complexity. The learning curve can be steep, but it is made easier by comprehensive documentation and learning resources from HashiCorp.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Vault is highly scalable, and it supports replication and performance standby features for scaling reads and disaster recovery.

Env0

• Purpose and Use Case: Env0 is a platform that facilitates Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automation and collaborative remote-run workflows. It is designed to manage and provide governance for Terraform operations in both production and development environments.
• Supported Platforms: Env0 operates on the major cloud platforms: AWS, GCP, and Azure.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Env0 integrates with version control systems like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, and with Terraform and Terragrunt for IaC automation. It also integrates with Slack for notifications.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: Env0 has a user-friendly interface and is easy to use. Its integration with familiar version control systems and Terraform simplifies the learning curve.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Env0 scales to support multiple projects, templates, and environments, making it suitable for organizations of different sizes.

Terraform Sentinel

• Purpose and Use Case: Sentinel is HashiCorp’s policy as code framework. It integrates with the Terraform Cloud and Enterprise to enable fine-grained, logic-based policy decisions, and provides the ability to restrict resource parameters.
• Supported Platforms: Sentinel is built into the Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise platforms.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Sentinel policies can be applied to all parts of your Terraform workflow and they are versioned and tested the same way as the code itself.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: Sentinel uses its own language which can be a bit complex to grasp initially, but comprehensive guides and documentation from HashiCorp assist in the learning process.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Being integrated into Terraform Cloud and Enterprise, Sentinel scales along with your Terraform operations.

Terragrunt

• Purpose and Use Case: Terragrunt is a thin wrapper that provides extra tools for working with multiple Terraform modules, keeping your Terraform configurations DRY, and managing remote state.
• Supported Platforms: Terragrunt is an open-source tool and can be used wherever Terraform runs.
• Integration with the Data Ecosystem: Terragrunt works with Terraform to manage infrastructure. It can use Terraform configurations as inputs and supports multiple cloud platforms.
• Ease of Use and Learning Curve: Terragrunt relies heavily on the understanding of Terraform. It may increase the complexity of your configurations but it pays off by providing more structure and scalability to large projects.
• Scalability and Extensibility: Terragrunt helps manage large infrastructures spanning multiple Terraform modules by providing tooling for modularity, state management, and code reuse.

Summary of the Ecosystem

In the Terraform ecosystem, each tool plays a distinct role and is tailored to address specific challenges in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) implementation. However, they can also work in unison to amplify their benefits. For instance, Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise offer seamless integrations with tools like Terraform Sentinel and Terragrunt, enhancing policy enforcement, scalability, and modularity in your Terraform projects.

Env0 works well with both Terraform and Terragrunt, providing governance and management to your IaC automation and collaborative workflows. Combining these tools allows teams to manage infrastructure efficiently, maintain policy compliance, and enable resource optimization in a highly collaborative environment. At the same time, each tool can be used independently, depending on the requirements, and still offer considerable advantages.

Terraform Vault plays a significant role in securing, storing, and tightly controlling access to tokens, passwords, certificates, API keys, and other secrets in modern computing, making it an essential part of any robust IaC ecosystem.

About Anant

At Anant, we recognize the importance of efficient and secure IaC practices in the modern data landscape. We are committed to leveraging our broad expertise in the data engineering space to help our clients harness these powerful tools in the Terraform ecosystem. That’s why Terraform is a core component of our DLM Toolkit and our Data Platform Automation Toolkit Whether it’s learning how to integrate these services or understanding when to use one tool over the other, our goal is to empower teams to build, maintain, and scale their IaC with confidence.

In line with our mission, we provide consulting and professional services around these tools, helping organizations modernize their data platforms and solve complex data problems. Furthermore, we are committed to sharing our knowledge and insights in this space through our regularly published knowledge base, contributing to the broader data engineering community.

Regardless of where you are in your data journey, remember that leveraging the right tools is key. Get in touch with us today to explore how we can assist you in navigating the Terraform managed service ecosystem and beyond.