Terraform
Infrastructure defined as code, not clicked together by hand
What It Is
Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool that lets cloud resources servers, networks, databases, permissions be defined as version-controlled configuration files instead of manual clicks in a cloud console. Running that configuration provisions or updates the actual infrastructure to match.
Why It Matters
Infrastructure configured by hand drifts staging and production quietly diverge until "it works on staging" stops meaning anything, and nobody can say with confidence what's actually deployed. Terraform makes infrastructure changes a reviewable pull request instead of an untracked change someone made in a console at 11pm.
How TieTech Uses It
Every environment we operate staging, production, everything between is defined as Terraform code, the core practice behind our cloud infrastructure reference architecture and DevOps case study: a new environment reproducible in minutes, and disaster recovery that's actually been tested, not just hoped for.
