July 2019 Summaries

HashiCorp has announced the public availability of HashiCorp Vault 1.2, a tool for secrets management, data encryption, and identity management. The new release focuses on supporting automated credential and cryptographic key management at scale. Key features include the KMIP Server Secret Engine, Integrated Storage, Identity Tokens, and Database Static Credential Rotation. These features aim to improve Vault's automation capabilities, integration with enterprise systems, and security posture. Additionally, Vault 1.2 introduces a new API explorer, ElasticSearch database plugin, Pivotal Cloud Foundry plugin, and UI enhancements, making it easier for users to manage their secrets and encryption. The release also includes general upgrades instructions and recommendations for testing in an isolated environment before deploying in production.

HashiCorp has extended its collaboration agreement with Microsoft, which was initially signed in 2017. The purpose of this extension is to further expand the capabilities of the Azure Terraform provider, enabling more resources and services for users to leverage through Terraform. This partnership has led to significant enhancements, including Terraform embedded into the Azure Cloud Shell CLI, support for Azure Stack, extensive coverage of services and resources, and over 100 published Terraform modules on the Terraform Module Registry. Additionally, HashiCorp has announced integrations with Vault, Consul, and Packer, which will be detailed in a separate blog post. This extension signifies a continued commitment to delivering a great experience for customers using HashiCorp tools on Azure, with ongoing support from Microsoft and co-engineering efforts resulting in a robust Terraform provider.

Terraform Enterprise has announced an integration with ServiceNow Service Catalog, enabling self-service infrastructure provisioning for end-users within organizations. The integration allows users to request infrastructure from the ServiceNow Service Catalog and have Terraform Enterprise provide automated services, streamlining workflow management and policy enforcement. The setup process is streamlined, and users can order infrastructure through the ServiceNow catalog, with Terraform Enterprise executing provisioning and policy enforcement. This integration enhances the capabilities of both platforms, providing a more efficient and secure way to manage infrastructure and resources.

HashiCorp has introduced policy sets for HashiCorp Terraform Enterprise, allowing organizations to create logical groups of policies to apply against different environments and components of their infrastructure. Policy sets can now be configured to source policies from version control systems (VCS), bringing immutability benefits to governance and policy management. This feature is part of the Tao of HashiCorp's guiding principles for responsible infrastructure management, which are also applied to Terraform configuration. With VCS integration, users can write policies directly in their repository, configure Terraform Enterprise to use them, and enforce them on a run. The feature provides a first-class policy as code experience and is now the recommended way to manage Sentinel policies in Terraform Enterprise. It is available in Terraform Cloud and will be released in an upcoming version of Terraform Enterprise.

The latest beta release of HashiCorp Consul 1.6 introduces significant features to support Layer 7 routing and traffic management, including mesh gateways that transparently and securely route service traffic across multiple regions, platforms, and clouds. This release builds upon the existing service mesh solution, Consul Connect, which was introduced in version 1.2. The new features enable advanced traffic management patterns for service-to-service requests, increased reliability with advanced service failover, and deployment patterns such as HTTP path-based routing. Mesh gateways are a key component of this feature set, enabling services in separate networking environments to communicate with each other securely. Consul 1.6 also includes additional configuration entry types that allow users to create complex traffic management configurations using the HashiCorp Configuration Language or JSON. The release is now available for download and invites users to experiment with these new features, while cautioning against using the beta build in production environments until further testing and stabilization are completed.

HashiCorp is hosting its fifth annual flagship conference, HashiConf, in Seattle this September. The event will feature over 40 sessions, including product releases and training sessions on various HashiCorp products such as Terraform, Vault, Consul, and Nomad. Attendees can also look forward to networking opportunities with HashiCorp engineers and experts, as well as the chance to connect with the HashiCorp community. The conference schedule is designed to be inspiring, with a focus on education, collaboration, and connection. Registration for tickets is now open, allowing attendees to secure their spot at this year's event.

The Consul Team has released recent updates to the Consul service mesh, which include changes to the underlying APIs and the user interface, including a new Services View, improved Sidecar proxies, Blocking Queries, and Filtering capabilities. These updates aim to improve the user experience by providing better insights into services, nodes, and sidecar proxies, as well as enabling real-time updates and more precise filtering of data.