Best Terraform Books 2024

Terraform: Up & Running: Writing Infrastructure as Code Third Edition

by Yevgeniy Brikman is best book on terraform. Terraform has become a key player in the DevOps world to define, launch, and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) on a variety of cloud and virtualization platforms, including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and more. This convenient, extended and completely updated second edition for Terraform version 0.12 and higher shows you the fastest way to get started.

Gruntwork co-founder Yevgeniy Jim Brikman walks you through code samples that demonstrate Terraform’s simple, declarative programming language to implement and manage the infrastructure code with just a few commands. Seasoned sysadmins, DevOps engineers, and novice developers will quickly move from Terraform basics to running a full stack that can support massive traffic and a large team of developers. You will learn:

Compare Terraform with Chef, Puppet, Ansible, CloudFormation, and Pulumi
Deploy servers, load balancers, and databases
Create reusable infrastructure with Terraform modules
Test your Terraform modules with static analysis, unit tests, and integration tests
Configure CI/CD pipelines for both your apps and infrastructure code
Use advanced Terraform syntax for loops, conditionals, and zero-downtime deployment
Get up to speed on Terraform 0.13 to 1.0 and beyond
Work with multiple clouds and providers (including Kubernetes!)

This is the best Terraform book in 2023.

Terraform Cookbook: Efficiently define, launch, and manage Infrastructure as Code across various cloud platforms

Terraform Cookbook: Efficiently define, launch, and manage Infrastructure as Code across various cloud platforms by Mikael Krief with a forward from Mitchell Hashimoto. This book is for DevOps developers, operators, and engineers looking to improve their workflow and managing infrastructure as code. Experience with Microsoft Azure, Jenkins, shell scripts, and DevOps practices is required to get the most out of this Terraform book.

The HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) changed the way we define and provision data center infrastructure with the launch of Terraform, one of the most popular and powerful products for building infrastructure as code. This best book for terraform will show you how to take advantage of HashiCorp’s Terraform tool to easily manage complex infrastructure.

Starting with recipes for setting up your environment, this best books on terraform will take you step-by-step through setup, provisioning, collaboration, and creating a multi-environment architecture. Unlike other books, you can also explore recipes with real-life example for provisioning your Azure infrastructure with Terraform. Once you’ve covered topics like the Azure model, Azure CLI, Terraform configuration, and Terragrunt, you will dive into manual and automated testing with Terraform configurations. The next series of chapters will show you how to manage a balanced and efficient infrastructure and create a reusable infrastructure with Terraform modules. Finally, you will explore the latest DevOps trends such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI / CD) and zero-downtime deployments.

By the end of this book, you will have developed the skills you need to get the most out of Terraform and effectively manage your infrastructure.

Terraform in Action

by Scott Winkler presents the Infrastructure-as-Code concept, showing readers how to create and manage servers that can be provisioned, shared, modified, tested, and deployed at the push of a button. The entire potential of Terraform will be unlocked, allowing readers to manage their infrastructure as simply as they manage their codebase. You will learn:

Cloud architecture with Terraform
Terraform module sharing and the private module registry
Terraform security in a multitenant environment
Strategies for performing blue/green deployments
Refactoring for code maintenance and reusability
Running Terraform at scale
Creating your own Terraform provider
Using Terraform as a continuous development/continuous delivery platform

Terraform in Action shows you how to automate and scale infrastructure programmatically using the Terraform toolkit. Using practical, relevant examples, you’ll use Terraform to provision a Kubernetes cluster, deploy a multiplayer game, and configure other hands-on projects. As you progress to advanced techniques like zero-downtime deployments, you’ll discover how to think in Terraform rather than just copying and pasting scripts.

Infrastructure Automation with Terraform: Automate and Orchestrate your Infrastructure with Terraform Across AWS and Microsoft Azure

by Ankita Patil and Mitesh Soni. This book explains how to quickly learn and utilize Terraform to incorporate Infrastructure as Code into a continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline. The book gives you the step-by-step instructions with screenshots and diagrams to make the learning more accessible and fun.

This book discusses the necessity of Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) and the many tools available for implementing IaC. You will gain the knowledge of resource creation, IAM roles, EC2 instances, elastic load balancers, and building terraform scripts, among other learnings. Next, you will explore projects and use-cases for implementing DevOps concepts like Continuous Integration, Infrastructure as Code, and Continuous Delivery. Finally, you learn about the Terraform Modules and how to establish networks and Kubernetes clusters on various cloud providers. Installing and configuring Jenkins and SonarQube in Cloud Environments will also be discussed. As a result of reading this book, you will be able to apply Infrastructure as Code and Pipeline as Code principles to major cloud providers such as AWS and Azure.

You will learn

Create, manage, and maintain AWS and Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
Using Packer, create AMIs and EC2 instances.
Utilize Terraform Modules to create VPC and Kubernetes clusters.
Put the Pipeline and Infrastructure as Code principles into practice.
Utilize Jenkins to automate the application lifecycle management process.

Terraform for Google Cloud Essential Guide: Learn how to provision infrastructure in Google Cloud securely and efficiently

by Bernd Nordhausen. Google Cloud has adopted Terraform as the standard Infrastructure as Code tool. This necessitates a solid understanding of Terraform for any cloud architect or engineer working on Google Cloud. Yet no specific resources are available that focus on how to use Terraform on Google Cloud.

This is the first book that teaches Terraform specifically for Google Cloud. You will take a journey from the basic concepts through to deploying complex architectures using Terraform. Using extensive code examples, you will receive guidance on how to authenticate Terraform in Google Cloud. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with all the essential concepts of the Terraform language as applied to Google Cloud and deploy complete working architectures at the push of a button. Finally, you’ll also be able to improve your Terraform workflow using Google Cloud native and third-party tools.

By the end of this best book to learn terraform, you will have gained a thorough understanding of Terraform and how to use it on Google Cloud, and be able to develop effective Terraform code, build reusable code, and utilize public domain Terraform modules to deploy on Google Cloud faster and more securely.
You will learn

Authenticate Terraform in Google Cloud using multiple methods
Write efficient Terraform code
Use modules to share Terraform templates
Manage multiple environments in Google Cloud
Apply Terraform to deploy multi-tiered architectures
Use public modules to deploy complex architectures quickly
Integrate Terraform into your Google Cloud environment

Deep-Dive Terraform on Azure: Automated Delivery and Deployment of Azure Solutions

Get started with the foundations of Infrastructure as Code and learn how Terraform can automate the deployment and management of resources on Azure. This book covers all of the software engineering practices related to Terraform and Infrastructure as Code with Azure as a cloud provider.

The terraform best books starts with an introduction to Infrastructure as Code and covers basic concepts, principles, and tools, followed by an overview of Azure and Terraform that shows you how Terraform can be used to provision and manage Azure resources. You will get started writing multiple Terraform scripts and explore its various concepts. Author Ritesh Modi takes a deep dive into Terraform and teaches you about deployment and multiple resource creation using loops. Writing a reusable script using modules is discussed as well as management and administration of secrets, sensitive data, and passwords within Terraform code.

You will learn to store and version Terraform scripts and know how Terraform is used in Azure DevOps pipelines. And you will write unit and integration tests for Terraform and learn its best practices. The book also highlights and walks through the Terraform Azure Provider and shows you a simple way to create a new Terraform provider. After reading this book, you will be able to write quality Terraform scripts that are secure by design, modular, and reusable in Azure.

You will learn:

Understand implementation within infrastructure and application deployments
Provision resources in Azure using Terraform
Use unit and integration testing
Explore concepts such as local vs remote, importing state, workspaces, and backends

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Terraform?

Infrastructure may be built, modified, and versioned effectively and safely with Terraform. Together with managing established and well-liked service providers, Terraform may also handle unique internal solutions. The tight-knit infrastructure components, such as packages, files, and services, are often the focus of configuration management tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and SaltStack. The focus of Terraform, on the other hand, is on resources or “things” that already exist in your infrastructure and is more declarative. This distinction is crucial because it allows Terraform to accurately represent all facets of practically any infrastructure type, from physical and virtual servers to email and DNS providers.

Is Terraform an automation tool?

Because it can automate the provisioning and administration of infrastructure resources, Terraform is an automation tool. Using pipelines is the most popular method for automating the provisioning and administration of infrastructure resources.

What is the difference between Terraform and Kubernetes?

The primary distinction between Terraform and Kubernetes is that whereas Kubernetes is meant to orchestrate and containerize applications, Terraform is used to manage infrastructure resources.