Presentation on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with OpenStack, OpenTofu and GitLab

by vimja on 2024-02-19

  • Date: Thursday, 21st of March
  • Time: From 19:30 until about 20:30
  • Location: At our hackerspace (Kyburgstrasse 13 in 3013 Bern)

Please note: that the presentation will be held in German.

Our sponsor, Cirrax GmbH, is providing the Chaostreff Bern with resources in their OpenStack based cloud.

In the past months, we have transitioned from managing those resources manually, to using a modern Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow.

In IaC cloud resources such as virtual machines (VMs) or their storage media is no longer managed by hand. Instead a machine readable file is created. This file describes the target state. A piece of software is then used to compare this target state with the actual state at that time. The software will show the differences and upon request make the necessary changes to transition the environment to the target state.

At the Chaostreff Bern we are using OpenTofu as the IaC tool of our choice. Our own GitLab instance allows us to use OpenTofu in a state of the art workflow.

The presentation will be split into two parts. During an initial 30 minutes, I will give an introduction to IaC and the tools used. We will also talk about the difference to and integration with configuration management software. After a short break, I will then explain some of the details of what we are doing at the Chaostreff Bern.

Collection

Free access to knowledge is one of our core values. As such and as always, entry to the presentation will be free to all. However, with the pending relocation of our hackerspace we will be taking a collection. Anyone who can afford it is kindly asked to contribute some money to our moving funds.