New Feature: How To Deploy Terraform Modules From A Service Catalog

Ryan Fee

Director of Solution Architecture - Scalr

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Problem

It can be quite a challenge to drive standards in Terraform codebases. Existing work isn’t always easily discoverable, and it’s all too easy to Google + copy paste a new module. It’s an even further challenge to assist folks that are unfamiliar with Terraform. Some of the problems we often hear are:

It’s hard to standardize on approved modules if you have no control mechanism, no search, and no discoverability.
Not all users are familiar with Terraform and correct module usage.
Even if users are familiar with modules, it’s not always necessary to copy and paste into their own code if they just need to deploy something quickly.
Why waste developer time creating code if there is already an organizational standard.

If you don’t maintain the right standards early in your Terraform journey, it’s easy to end up with an unmaintainable mess.

Don’t underestimate how fast a mess gets messier.

Solution

The module registry has been a feature in Scalr for quite some time. We have now improved it with the ability to deploy workspaces directly from the catalog of modules. Workspaces sourced from the module registry make it very easy for your end users, whether they are Terraform experts or not, to deploy approved Terraform modules with just a few clicks. The general workflow is as follows:

Admins choose to manage the modules from the account scope and share across all environments or publish modules to specific environments.

The end users create a workspace by selecting the module and version. The users will then be prompted to set variables if required and then can execute a run.

All users benefit from the ability to deploy modules directly from the Scalr UI, which in turn helps DevOps leaders drive standardization.

How to Get Started:

To try this feature out, you will first need to publish a module in the registry. Once the module is published, create a new workspace and select module as the source: