{"id":18620,"date":"2022-09-02T09:32:05","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T07:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.codemotion.com\/magazine\/?p=18620"},"modified":"2022-09-02T11:03:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T09:03:37","slug":"terraform-vs-bicep-the-differences-between-the-two-azure-tools-that-build-good-infrastructure-code-of-a-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codemotion.com\/magazine\/devops\/cloud\/terraform-vs-bicep-the-differences-between-the-two-azure-tools-that-build-good-infrastructure-code-of-a-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Terraform vs. Bicep: The Differences Between the Two Azure Tools That Build Good Infrastructure Code"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Choosing between Azure tools? Having a traditional version-controlled code<\/strong> made maintaining a consistent underlying infrastructure that deals with multiple environments like development, staging, and production challenging for a long time. There\u2019s a tendency for those environments to drift out of sync unless they\u2019re maintained manually, and that can cause problems further down the line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter the concept of infrastructure defined as code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloud-based solutions from modern machine learning tools to automated QA testing software<\/a> offer advantages in terms of everyday functionality. It\u2019s no surprise that as these have become more popular, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools<\/strong> have begun to take off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we\u2019ll look at two of the most popular Azure tools\u2013 Terraform and Bicep \u2013 with particular reference to how well each of them gets along with the Azure cloud computing platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Infrastructure as Code?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The growing popularity of cloud adoption strategies<\/a> has been instrumental in the increasing relevance of IaC. That\u2019s because, in public cloud environments, developers can\u2019t access the underlying infrastructure.<\/strong> Instead, cloud providers offer console-based interfaces to allow you to work with the resources you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IaC involves describing infrastructure using code blocks, so it\u2019s a convenient way of working in this context. Interacting with this infrastructure programmatically precludes the need to use the GUI console. What this means is that actions can be performed and resources created and configured in an automated way, including vital ones such as patch management<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The code is declarative, meaning you determine which form you would like the infrastructure to take, and the code implements your decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you consider the kinds of use cases Apache Hadoop is used for<\/a>, you can see that this sort of infrastructure automation is a modern marvel. The wide variety of configurations and resources deployed on the cloud is a testament to the flexibility of this approach. But it also means that sometimes, infrastructure needs to be scaled, provisioned, or destroyed \u2013 much more complex jobs if you don\u2019t have an IaC solution available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The benefits of IaC don\u2019t end there, though. Another big plus is that it makes versioning possible: you can version changes to the code. In practice, this also means that you can capture versions of the infrastructure itself, using a version control tool to track changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This incredibly useful functionality was never possible when working with physical infrastructures and represents a real step forward. It also makes it much easier to implement downstream processes such as data orchestration<\/a> and the flexibility and adaptability it offers are not to be sniffed at.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s look at the first IaC tools we\u2019re considering here: Hashicorp\u2019s Terraform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hashicorp Terraform <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hashicorp Terraform is one of the best-known IaC languages in widespread use today<\/strong>. The open-source tool is free to download from the Hashicorp site. It allows you to write declarative IaC using configuration files in Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terraform has been downloaded over 100 million times, and it\u2019s easy to see why. Its syntax is very intuitive and developer-friendly, so you can quickly pick it up and get started without wasting too much time. Even if you\u2019re working with complex infrastructures<\/strong>, you can write them in a way that is straightforward and easily readable to other humans\u2014which is always good news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terraform works by generating an \u201cexecution plan.\u201d This plan sets out what is necessary for Terraform to create a described state of infrastructure from the configuration files. Terraform tracks the changes to the infrastructure and adapts new execution plans to make incremental improvements. The kinds of infrastructure it can be used for include (but are not limited to): <\/p>\n\n\n\n