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Software Engineering vocabulary · Release and Maintenance

Terraform

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈtɛrəfɔːrm/nounCommon term

In software engineering, Terraform means: A widely used infrastructure-as-code tool from HashiCorp. You describe resources in configuration files, and it creates, changes or deletes them to match.

In Turkish: Terraform, altyapı kodlama aracı

How it is used

Files are written in HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language). The main commands are 'terraform plan' (show what will change) and 'terraform apply' (make the changes). It keeps track of resources in a state file. OpenTofu is an open-source fork.

Example sentences

  1. Always read the Terraform plan before you apply it; one wrong line can delete a database.

  2. All our AWS accounts are managed with Terraform, so nothing is created by hand.

Common collocations

  • Terraform plan
  • Terraform apply
  • Terraform module
  • Terraform state
  • Terraform provider
  • infrastructure as codeManaging servers, networks and other cloud resources by writing configuration files that tools read and apply, instead of clicking through a console by hand.
  • provisionTo create and set up computing resources, such as servers, databases or networks, so they are ready to use.
  • configuration managementUsing tools to keep the software, settings and files on many servers in a known, consistent state, instead of changing each server by hand.
  • YAMLA human-readable text format for configuration files that uses indentation and simple 'key: value' lines. Most DevOps tools are configured with it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Release and Maintenance

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