HashiCorp Packer vs. IBM Terraform

We use packer to generate new machine images for multiple platforms on every change to our Configuration Management tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible It's act single tool for Image building for Multi-provider like AWS/Azure/GCP Helps to achieve Dev/Prod Parity Packer itself doesn't have a state like Terraform. You can't do packer output AMI ID. If you have a scenario where you want to maintain the state for images it would be tough to manage via Packer.

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IBM Terraform does a great job in managing cloud infra workloads. The problem statement is, as a organization we lack the ability to deploy repeatable infra across our cloud platform and we need that infra to be compliant, secure and easy to deploy. The second problem statement is to integrate your infra deployment into your software pipeline with some type of ci pipeline.

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• Multi-provider portability
• Greater testability
• Super fast infrastructure deployment

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• Standardised templating - Great for repetitive tasks or processes. For example flattening JSON files into tables. We can make a Terraform template which can be duplicated and used for many different file schemas.
• Dynamic/static variables - Getting information about the stage/instance Terraform is running in can help dynamically generate assets. E.g. making prod vs dev vs non-live assets based on the instance to Git branch.
• Vast array of connectors - Terraform seems to connect with lots of different technologies, and are often maintained by the tech provider so you know it's going to be designed in the best way possible for that tech.

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• Manageability
• Manageability
• Manageability

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• Refactoring resources between modules needs careful state handling. A simpler guided process would help reduce the risk of unintended changes.
• Large Terraform plans can be difficult to review. A clearer summary of changes to security rules, IAM permissions, and resource replacements would help.

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We are happy with the use of Packer in our organization. Apart from manageability, I don't find any other drawback with Packer.

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Still the best provisioning tool out there and good support from the community as well in terms of shared knowledge

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It's best for building Image with many features and benefits.

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We need to work with different products, and it can be a bit painful, but I see IBM's strategy as bringing the whole workflow together, like Ansible, Terraform, and so on, which is very useful. Now, I guess it is important to unify it in one place.

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Terraform's performance is quite amazing when it comes to deployment of resources in AWS. Of course, the deployment times depend on various parameters like the number of resources to deploy and different regions to deploy. Terraform cannot control that. The only minor drawback probably shows up when a terraform job is terminated mid way. Then in many cases, time-consuming manual cleanup is required.

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I only once required support and it was very smooth.

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I have yet to have an opportunity to reach out directly to HashiCorp for support on Terraform. However, I have spent a great deal of time considering their documentation as I use the tool. This opinion is based solely on that. I find the Terraform documentation to have great breadth but lacking in depth in many areas. I appreciate that all of the tool's resources have an entry in the docs but often the examples are lacking. Often, the examples provided are very basic and prompt additional exploration. Also, the links in the documentation often link back to the same page where one might expect to be linked to a different source with additional information.

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I haven't found any issue in Implementation that itself describes how well this tool is built.

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Implementation is straight forward. Never had issues as the team is already very familiar with Terraform installation from previous projects and roles

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There are lot of tools in market which does the job for Image creation but all of them are not complete Machine/Image as a code. All other alternatives can create Image partially. Main reason for selecting Packer are Packer is lightweight, portable, and command-line driven Packer helps keep development, staging, and production as similar as possible. Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image Multi-provider portability is the feature to die for

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Terraform is a large step ahead of the previous generation of infrastructure-as-code providers. I'd never go back to, e.g. Puppet or Chef, Ansible, etc. That said I think that Pulumi has a good chance of displaying it, in no small part because the Terraform language itself is a barrier to adoption. In a greenfield project I'd likely start with Pulumi, but for a while I expect Terraform to stay in the lead in terms of existing integrations.

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• Super fast infrastructure deployment
• Quick turnaround of infrastructure in multiple cloud using single tool.
• Increase productivity by reducing time in infrastructure building.

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• The entire mission-critical infrastructure is managed as code, with access control & version control.
• Very trivial to setup daily job to compare actual infra vs code to detect & alert drifts.
• Familiar to build & maintain means lower cost of ownership.