Mastering GitOps with Terraform Controller
In this post, we continue exploring effective tools for bridging the gap between Infrastructure as Code and GitOps. We aim to harness the optimal benefits of these practices as they are fundamental to our thoughts on building great platforms. One such tool that has gained our attention is Terraform Controller by Weaveworks, and we’d like to share our experience.
Before going into the details, we recommend reading our experience with a framework called Crossplane, which we’ve passed on in our previous blog post. While Crossplane offers deep Kubernetes integration, treating infrastructure management as a native Kubernetes operation, it also brings certain complexities and limitations. In contrast, Terraform Controller interconnects the Kubernetes ecosystem with Terraform’s robust infrastructure management capabilities. A key distinction lies in their operational models - Terraform Controller builds upon Terraform’s established state management and operational principles. For those already well-acquainted with Terraform, this offers a certain familiarity, reliability, and feature completeness.
Terraform Controller is a Kubernetes controller that translates Kubernetes resources into Terraform configurations. This process involves several essential Kubernetes custom resources (CR) - Terraform and Flux source objects.
