Deploying a Well-Architected in Alibaba Cloud using Terraform

1. Deploying a Well-Architected in Alibaba Cloud using
Terraform
Carlo L. Pantilano
Enterprise Architect

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Overview of Terraform
• Setting up Alibaba Cloud account and Terraform
• Defining the Alibaba Cloud Provider and Resources
• Retrieving data using Data Sources
• Defining Variables
• Using Modules
• Executing the Terraform script

3. Introduction
Using Terraform as an infrastructure as
code (IaC) tool provides powerful
features to create, update, and version
control cloud infrastructure, enabling you
to execute plans and manage hybrid
cloud and multicloud deployments.
Incorporating Terraform orchestration for
Alibaba Cloud infrastructure
management could be beneficial for your
business. Additionally, integrating with
Terraform allows for increased efficiency
in managing Alibaba Cloud infrastructure

4. Overview of Terraform
With Terraform, you can provision and manage cloud resources through
essential operations like plan, apply, and destroy, which depend on the target
configuration of your infrastructure.
This solution offers business benefits:
• Enhances efficiency in resource orchestration while reducing the effort and
minimizing operational errors
• Enables the automation of resource orchestration to handle varying workloads.
• Enables the tracking of configuration changes for auditing purposes and facilitates
rolling back configuration changes as needed

5. Setting up Alibaba Cloud account and Terraform
• Sign up for an Alibaba Cloud account
o To use Alibaba Cloud services, you'll need to sign up for an account. You can do this by visiting the Alibaba Cloud website and following the
sign-up process.
o You'll be prompted to provide some basic information, such as your name, email address, and phone number. You may also need to
provide additional verification information, such as a government-issued ID or passport.
o Once your account is set up, you can sign-in to the Alibaba Cloud console to access your account resources.
• Install and set up Terraform on your local machine
o Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code tool that enables you to define and manage your infrastructure in a declarative way. To
use Terraform with Alibaba Cloud, you'll need to install it on your local machine.
o You can download the appropriate version of Terraform for your operating system from the official Terraform website.
o After downloading Terraform, you'll need to add it to your system's PATH variable to be able to run it from the command line. You can
follow the Terraform installation documentation to do this.

7. Defining the Alibaba Cloud Provider and Resources
• Define the Alibaba Cloud provider and authentication details
o To use Alibaba Cloud with Terraform, you need to define the Alibaba Cloud provider in your Terraform configuration file.
o The provider block specifies the configuration for the Alibaba Cloud API credentials and the region in which your resources
will be created.
o You can specify the Alibaba Cloud Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, or you can use a credential file.
• Define the necessary resources such as VPC, ECS instances, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers, RDS,
etc.
o Once you have defined the Alibaba Cloud provider, you can start defining your resources in your Terraform configuration file.
o Alibaba Cloud resources can include Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers,
Relational Database Service (RDS), and more.
o You can use the Alibaba Cloud documentation to learn more about the specific resources you want to create.

9. Retrieving data using Data Sources
The Alibaba Cloud Data Source service allows users to quickly and securely retrieve
data from existing resources in your Alibaba Cloud account. You can extract the
required data directly into formats such as:
• JSON
• CSV
• XML
It supports custom queries against databases like MySQL and MongoDB that are under
your Alibaba Cloud security group host control.
Additionally, it also provides access information via secure HTTP connections for public
cloud resources like a stack of Object Storage Service buckets allowing you to
centralize all needed content within one secured gateway.

10. Defining Variables
• Define the required variables in a separate file
• Variables in the Terraform configuration file

12. Using Modules
• Use modules to break down your configuration file into smaller,
reusable components
• Define the module
• Reference the module
• Verify module configuration
• Apply module configuration

14. Benefits of using modules
• Easy maintenance
• Scalability
• Code reuse
• Security

15. Executing the Terraform script
• Use `terraform init` to initialize the Terraform working directory
• Use `terraform plan` to review the changes to be made
• Use `terraform apply` to apply the changes to the infrastructure
• Lastly, verify the infrastructure is deployed in your environment via
Alibaba Cloud console

17. Conclusion
Using Terraform, allows you to easily manage and maintain your
infrastructure as your needs evolve over time deploy a Well-Architected
solution in Alibaba Cloud
• Understand the basics of Terraform and Alibaba Cloud
• Define the Alibaba Cloud provider and resources in a Terraform configuration file
• Use data sources to retrieve data from existing resources in your Alibaba Cloud account
• Define variables to make your Terraform configuration more dynamic
• Use modules to organize your Terraform configuration into reusable components
• Execute the Terraform script to deploy your resources
• Verify that your resources are deployed and working as expected
• Maintain and update your Terraform configuration over time to keep your infrastructure up-to-date and in compliance
with best practices