Microservices with Terraform, Docker and the Cloud. DevOps Wet 2018

Managing Microservices
using Terraform, Docker, and the Cloud
Given by Derek C. Ashmore
DevOps West – June 6, 2018
©2018 Derek C. Ashmore, All Rights Reserved 1

Who am I?
• Professional Geek
since 1987
• Java/J2EE/Java EE
since 1999
• AWS since 2010
• Specialties
• Refactoring
• Performance
Tuning
• Yes – I still code!

Discussion Resources
• This slide deck
– http://www.slideshare.net/derekashmore
• The hands-on-lab code
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/terraform-hands-on-lab
• The Moneta microservice (written in Java)
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/moneta
• Slide deck has hyper-links!
– Don’t bother writing down URLs

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

What are Microservices?
• No concrete definition
• Common microservice traits
– Single functional purpose
• Most/all changes only impact one service
• Not dependent on execution context
– “loosely coupled”
– Independent process/jvm
– Stateless
– Standard Interface (typically Web Service/REST)
– Analogy: Stereo system, Linux utilities

Microservices Application Architecture
• Separate Databases
• Eventual Consistency
• More network activity

Typical Microservice Library

Microservice Development

Docker
• Is a “mini VM”
• runs a linux kernal
• Compare to shipping
container
• Standard “connections” to
outside world
• Supported formally by
Oracle, Tomcat, Jboss, and
many more
9©2018 Derek C. Ashmore, All Rights Reserved
Package Once, Run Anywhere!

Why Docker?
• Docker is Win-Win
– Easier for OPS and system administrators
• All software looks the same
• Standard interface for disk and network resources
– Containers can be “linked”
• Inherently automated
– Easier for developers
• Fewer environment difference issues
• Less to communicate to OPS / system administrators
• Easy to leverage work of others (docker-hub)

Microservice Deployments

Basic Microservice Install at AWS
• Horizontal scaling is supported
• Multiple copies of microservice / web application
running at the same time
• Elastic Load Balancer distributes load across
copies of your service
• Sticky sessions available
• ELB can use health checks
• Autoscaling Groups scale number of copies up
and down based on rules you give it
• CPU Utilization or other metrics

Infrastructure as Code
• Manual changes
– Increase errors
– Increase unwanted differences
between environments
– Increase admin workload
• Scripted/Coded changes
– Larger upfront cost, but…..
– Less busywork
– Leverage Others Work
– Decreases Errors
– Errors fixed in one place
– Eliminates unwanted differences
– Change history (with source control)

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

Terraform
• Cloud Management
– Open Source
• Very active community
– Extensible to any cloud vendor
• AWS, Azure, GCP, AliCloud, Digital Ocean, OpenStack
– Supported for Cloud Support products
• Chef, Consul, Kubernetes, Datadog
• 62 Providers as of April, 2017 and growing

Terraform HCL
• Declarative Language
– Describe what the end product contains
• Terraform figures out how to get there
– Terraform Resources
• Describes deployed artifacts
– Network  Virtual Networks, Subnets, Network ACLs, Gateways, ELB/ALB
– Hosts  Virtual Machines, Databases
– Security  Security groups/policies/roles/groups/users
– Much more

Terraform Basics
• Declarative Programming
– All *.tf files loaded  Terraform decides execution order
– No GUI  All command line and text editor
• Terraform Command Flow

Terraform Resources
• AWS Subnet Resource
– Count = 3  Three subnets created
– Availability Zones come from a data source (lookup)
– CIDR blocks are input variables
• Sample source

Terraform Data Sources
• Example Data Sources (lookups)
• Sample source

Terraform Providers
• Example Provider
• Sample AWS source
• Azure Provider

Terraform Input Variables
• Example Provider
• Sample source

Reusing Terraform Templates
• Example Template Reuse
• Sample source

Typical Project Structure

Terraform State
• Terraform stores state
– Local file terraform.tfstate
• Teams need to manage state centrally
– Terraform Backends
• Locks so that only one person at a time can update
• Remote storage
– S3, Azure containers, Google cloud storage, etc.

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

Terraform vs. Ansible/Chef
• Terraform designed for infrastructure
– Not designed for configuration management
– Terraform deploys images
• Not good at maintaining what’s on those images
• If deployments update existing VMs
– You need Ansible, Chef, or Puppet
• If deployments are “new” VMs
– Terraform can handle deployments too

Paradigm Shift
• Deployment as new infrastructure
– New version  new VMs
• Software versions baked into images
– Advantages
• Facilitates Canary Deployments
– Route53 Routing Policies
• Go-live operation has less risk
– Deploy/Backout is just a load balancer switch
– Disadvantages
• More moving parts
• Impossible to do manually

Terraform vs CloudFormation
Terraform
• Scripting skills translate to Azure,
Google Cloud, etc.
• Less verbose (>50%)
• Data Lookups
• Custom Plug-ins possible
• Active Community Support
CloudFormation
• Quicker to follow AWS enhancements
• GUI support
• Automatic centralized state
• Vendor Support

Further Reading
• This slide deck
– http://www.slideshare.net/derekashmore
• The Gruntwork Blog
– https://blog.gruntwork.io/
• The hands-on-lab code
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/terraform-hands-on-lab

Questions?
• Derek Ashmore:
– Blog: www.derekashmore.com
– LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/derekashmore
• Connect Invites from attendees welcome
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/Derek_Ashmore
– GitHub: https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore
– Book: http://dvtpress.com/

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