Task

Find the purpose of basic Terraform commands which we'll use often:

1. terraform init: initializes a new or existing Terraform working directory by downloading and installing the necessary provider plugins and module dependencies. It also sets up the backend configuration to store state information and versioning for your infrastructure.

2. terraform init -upgrade: upgrades the Terraform configuration to the latest version of the provider plugins defined in the configuration. It downloads the latest versions of the provider plugins and installs them in the local Terraform configuration directory, allowing users to take advantage of the latest features and bug fixes.

3. terraform plan: used in the Terraform infrastructure-as-code tool to create an execution plan that shows what changes will be made to infrastructure resources based on the configuration files. It provides a preview of the changes to be made before actually applying them, allowing for validation and verification of the changes.

4. terraform apply: apply changes to infrastructure. It examines the current state and the desired state defined in the Terraform configuration files and then creates, updates, or deletes resources as necessary to make the actual infrastructure match the desired state.

5. terraform validate: checks the syntax and configuration of your Terraform code. It ensures that your code is correctly formatted, all necessary variables are defined, and all resources are configured properly before you apply changes to your infrastructure.

6. terraform fmt: automatically updates and standardizes the formatting of Terraform configuration files (.tf). It makes the code more readable and consistent by adjusting indentation, spacing, and other formatting elements based on the defined style conventions.

7. terraform destroy: destroys all the infrastructure resources that were created using Terraform. It removes all the resources created by the Terraform configuration and also destroys any dependencies between resources. It should be used carefully as it can cause data loss.

In addition to these tasks, it's important to know about Terraform in general.

What are the main competitors of Terraform?

There are many other IAC tools available, some of the main competitors of Terraform are:

AWS Cloudformation*:* AWS CloudFormation is a service that helps users model and set up their Amazon Web Services resources so they can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on their applications that run in AWS.

Ansible*:* Ansible is a configuration management and automation tool that facilitates tasks like provisioning, configuration, and application deployment, commonly utilized for managing servers and application deployments.

Packer*:* Packer enables the creation of a single machine image that can be used across various platforms like virtual machines, containers, and cloud environments, thereby saving time and resources.

Cloud Foundry*:* Cloud Foundry is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that automates the deployment and management of applications, providing developers with an environment to build, deploy, scale applications and focus on writing code.

Kubernetes*:* Kubernetes simplifies the deployment and management of containerized applications at scale by offering load balancing, scaling, self-healing, and other features across multiple hosts.

Chef: Chef is a declarative configuration management tool that enables users to automate the deployment and management of infrastructure across various operating systems and cloud providers.

Puppet: Puppet, like Chef, is a declarative configuration management tool that supports a wide range of operating systems and cloud providers, enabling users to automate infrastructure deployment and management.

That's all guys, hope it will help!

Reference: click this video for more details.

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