IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management

I am working in a platform team where we manage an internal developer platform with lots of workloads around AWS EKS and GCP GKE. We use Terraform to provision infrastructure across those cloud setups. Terraform allows us to create infrastructure as code to have a central place where all configurations are stored with all infrastructure setups.

Recently, we had a requirement from a customer, which is a developer team. They needed to deploy an application in a specific, dedicated AWS EKS cluster. We had to create that cluster and configure the networking and all cluster bootstrap modules that we needed to set up. We provisioned the AWS EKS cluster using Terraform and our reusable Terraform modules that we use to provision our infrastructure across the cloud environment.

Since we have specific Terraform modules for each infrastructure setup, we can reuse those modules in our infrastructure repository and provision a cluster within a few minutes rather than rewriting all infrastructure configurations. This is particularly helpful for us as a platform team managing an internal developer platform with many customers.

Our platform engineers' productivity has improved significantly with the ability to manage all infrastructure as code. We have that code and know what is in our cloud setup rather than logging into the cluster to check it.

Before using Terraform, our team used manual setup to create clusters in AWS using the AWS console, which would extend into two to three sprints for one person to set up all those components. With Terraform and those reusable modules, we were able to minimize it to two to three days with all verifications included.

The best features IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management offers include having a central place with reusable templates. Since this is a multi-cluster setup, coordinating a shared change safely is essential. Most of the time, there are infrastructure patterns in a platform, so we need a repeatable way to use them across environments.

Since we manage a separate Terraform modules repository for our configurations with AWS EKS cluster configurations and HashiCorp Vault configurations, if we need to make a change across all clusters, we only need to change that Terraform module itself.

Another benefit is that it can be used not only for a specific cloud setup. We can use it for AWS, GCP, and also for Azure. The multi-cluster, multi-cloud setup capability using Terraform is a good feature.

For platform teams, I would appreciate an easier way to manage changes across a large set of accounts and clusters. I would want to see the impact across all targets, review the plans individually, and roll out changes in controlled stages from one place. That would be a good improvement for Terraform for a platform team.

I have been using IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management for around three years. Before working in my current role, I used Terraform since my university life when I was studying at Colombo University for personal projects. My total experience is now three years.

In our company, since we have a governance body on top, we have no idea where these costs are determined. What we do is use them from the lower setup.

I would say IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management deserves a nine out of ten marks. With the improvement I mentioned for platform teams, that would be really valuable. Apart from that, overall, it definitely deserves this rating.

I have not worked with IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management's AI capabilities and have not explored them yet. Most of the time, we used GitHub Copilot or Codex to generate code for Terraform. My experience with the AI capabilities of Terraform is limited.

For anyone using HashiCorp Terraform, I would suggest using reusable templates and Terraform modules to minimize code repeatability.

Our main use case for IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management is standardizing and automating the lifecycle of cloud infrastructure using IaC, mainly for AWS environments. We have multiple environments and a number of AWS services that need to be provisioned consistently. Instead of having our engineers manually create resources through the AWS console, we use a Terraform-based infrastructure definition so that the infrastructure can be reviewed and version controlled and reproduced anytime. The important part is not simply creating an EC2 instance or VPC with Terraform, but having a consistent process for building, changing, reviewing, and eventually removing infrastructure. IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management positions infrastructure lifecycle management around a standardized workflow for provisioning, managing, and governing infrastructure with Terraform at the center of this workflow.

A quick, specific example of how I have used it in a real situation involves our IaC workflows, mainly Terraform, for both new infrastructure changes and existing infrastructure. A typical workflow includes Terraform configuration, then review, plan, approval, and application, resulting in the AWS infrastructure being up. This provides us with a much more controlled process than manually making infrastructure changes. For example, if we need to create a new application environment, we can reuse the same infrastructure patterns while changing environment-specific variables, which helps avoid situations where development, staging, and production become configured differently. We maintain a reusable Terraform configuration or module for common components, allowing us to standardize VPC definitions rather than having every application team define a VPC differently, which significantly simplifies the infrastructure review process. One practical benefit is that infrastructure changes become visible before they are applied, giving us an opportunity to review what is going to change before applying it, particularly useful in production.

The best features IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management offers include standardization, which I find most valuable. Terraform is powerful, but the real operational value comes from having a consistent lifecycle around the infrastructure. Instead of trying to remember how someone created an AWS resource six months ago, I can look at the infrastructure definition and understand how it is supposed to be managed. Other major benefits include repeatability; if we need another environment, we do not have to start from scratch.

Standardization and repeatability have greatly helped my team and projects. Rather than having every application team define the VPC differently, we can standardize it and use that standardization everywhere, leading to a more consistent infrastructure. This consistency makes it much easier to provision the infrastructure each time and saves us a significant amount of time.

IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management has positively impacted my organization by significantly reducing manual infrastructure work. Before standardizing our infrastructure as code workflows, creating an environment involved extensive manual efforts, AWS console work, and documentation. With reusable Terraform configurations, much of that process becomes repeatable and results in faster environment creation. Once the required modules and variables are available, setting up another environment is much easier. Consistency has improved, troubleshooting is simpler, change control is better, and disaster recovery is easier now.

IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management can be improved with easier onboarding, as newcomers to Terraform and the HashiCorp ecosystem may find it challenging to understand and complete the workflow. Additionally, better visibility for large environments is needed, as managing many AWS accounts and thousands of resources complicates understanding the relationships between infrastructure components. While reusable modules are extremely useful, organizations require a solid process for versioning, testing, and upgrading those modules, which can become a significant operational task in large Terraform environments.

I have been using IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management for around one year.

IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management is stable.

IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management is scalable.

Customer support for IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management is good.

I previously used different solutions, having evaluated self-managed Terraform workflows and internal Terraform modules.

I have seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of time saved, as previously mentioned regarding reusability and standardization; time saved is a key metric.

I would evaluate the pricing based on the amount of infrastructure and engineering time being managed. For a small workload environment, justifying the cost can be harder if the team is already comfortable managing Terraform independently. For larger organizations, the value comes from standardization, governance, and reduced manual workflows. For us, the productivity and consistency benefits are more important than simply comparing IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management against the cost of running Terraform itself.

Before choosing IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management, I evaluated other options including self-managed Terraform workflows and internal Terraform modules.

I would advise others looking into using IBM HashiCorp Infrastructure Lifecycle Management that if you have a complex infrastructure where maintainability and standardization become valuable, this is a good tool to use. I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.