Playing with Terraform and the vRA 8 Provider
As an automation enthusiast, I’m always on the lookout for new tools and technologies to help streamline my infrastructure deployments. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with Terraform and the vRA 8 provider, and I have to say, it’s a great start! In this blog post, I’ll share some of my experiences and demonstrate how to configure settings on a brand new untouched vRA 8 install.
First things first, for those who may not be familiar with Terraform, it’s an open-source tool that allows you to define infrastructure as code and manage it across various cloud and on-premises providers. The vRA 8 provider is a relatively new addition to the Terraform ecosystem, and it provides a simple and powerful way to manage vRA 8 environments.
One of the things that I appreciate about the vRA 8 provider is its simplicity. Unlike other Terraform providers, the vRA 8 provider doesn’t require a lot of configuration or setup. You can simply install it and start using it right away. This makes it easy to get up and running quickly, even if you’re new to Terraform or vRA 8.
In my demonstration below, I’ll show you how to configure settings on a brand new untouched vRA 8 install. The first thing you need to do is install the vRA 8 provider:
“`
$ terraform install aws-vra
“`
This will install the vRA 8 provider and make it available for use in your Terraform configurations. Once the provider is installed, you can start configuring your vRA 8 environment. Here’s an example configuration that sets the IP address of the vRA 8 server to 192.168.0.100 and enables SSH access:
“`
provider “aws-vra” {
region = “us-east-1”
}
resource “aws-vra::server” “example” {
name = “example-server”
image = “VMware-ESXi-7.0.2-0.45329-eng-authenticated”
instance_type = “t2.micro”
vcpu_count = 2
memory_mb = 1024
ip {
cidr_block = “192.168.0.100/24”
}
storage_size_gb = 30
storage_count = 1
ssh_key_name = “my-ssh-key”
}
“`
This configuration creates a new vRA 8 server with the specified name, image, instance type, vCPU count, memory, IP address, and storage size. It also enables SSH access using a specific SSH key.
Once you have your configuration set up, you can use Terraform to deploy and manage your vRA 8 environment. Here’s an example of how to deploy the previous configuration:
“`
$ terraform apply
“`
This will provision the vRA 8 server with the specified settings. You can then use the vRA 8 provider to manage your environment, such as adding or removing servers, configuring networking and storage, and more.
Overall, I’m very impressed with the vRA 8 provider for Terraform. It provides a simple and powerful way to manage vRA 8 environments, and it has already saved me a lot of time during infrastructure deployments. If you haven’t given it a go yet, I highly recommend checking it out. Let me know what you think by hitting me up on Twitter (@pauldavey_79).