September 2022 Summaries

The HashiCorp Community team recently held an offsite event where they combined traditional activities with their geeky interests. The team participated in a group tour of a winery using IoT, and on the final day, they had a choice between a hike and a Dungeons & Dragons session. The D&D campaign was custom-built by Adam FitzGerald, incorporating HashiCorp portfolio and principles, and was themed around the company's philosophy: the Tao of HashiCorp. The team enjoyed the experience, learning about each other as teammates and having fun while working together to defeat challenges and monsters. The event has been made available as a homebrewed adventure called "The Tower of Hashi" for teams or friends interested in running their own D&D campaign.

Terraform Enterprise has introduced new features to enhance operational observability and reduce administrative burdens. The latest version of Terraform Enterprise includes improved run pipeline observability, identity-based storage authentication for external data services on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and versioned documentation. These enhancements aim to provide better monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities at scale, simplify password management, and ensure that users have access to relevant documentation for their specific Terraform Enterprise version. The new features are designed to support the growing use of managed resources and cloud services, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions about their infrastructure and operations.

HashiCorp Terraform 1.3 is now available for download and use in HashiCorp Terraform Cloud, introducing optional object type attributes with defaults and enhancements to moved blocks, improving the extensibility and maintainability of Terraform modules. The new feature allows module authors to validate the type of value supplied to input variables and group multiple values into a single variable using the object type. This enables users to extend their modules to handle more complex use cases without forcing consumers to provide values for attributes that are not relevant to their work. Additionally, improvements to moved blocks enable refactoring resources within Terraform configurations, including resources sourced from third-party and separately sourced modules.

HashiCorp Vagrant 2.3 introduces a new Vagrant executable written in Golang, tying the Vagrant architecture more closely into the broader HashiCorp ecosystem. The release marks the first minor release on the path to 3.0 and includes a new Go-based runtime, which is the updated Vagrant implementation. This change aims to minimize confusion by moving the Go development out of a private repository and into the main branch. A plugin software development kit has also been introduced, providing Go-based APIs for all Vagrant plugin types. The Vagrant Go implementation is currently in an alpha state and may have performance issues and bugs, so users are advised to refer to documentation before using it.

HashiCorp's CISO emphasizes the importance of understanding infrastructure drift, which can occur due to various reasons such as non-standardized IaC workflows, emergencies, basic system updates, and cascading effects. Infrastructure drift can significantly impact security, functionality, and business operations, including unplanned downtime, audit findings, security incidents, rework, and unused resources. To mitigate the issue, organizations should implement drift detection and remediation solutions that provide centralized visibility, automate the process, and alert teams to take corrective action. HashiCorp's Terraform provides built-in functionality for infrastructure automation with workflows and drift detection features, offering a scalable solution for teams concerned with drift.

HashiCorp is hosting an event called HashiConf Global, which will take place in Los Angeles and online from October 4-6. The event features a Minecraft world called HashiCraft that uses the company's tools, including Nomad, Consul, Boundary, and Vault, to demonstrate new workflows for automating infrastructure, applications, and security. In this virtual world, attendees can interact with a virtual environment by creating items, exploring its limits, and doing it securely, using analogies such as accessing restricted areas with HashiCorp Vault and scheduling minecarts with Nomad. The event also includes demos, a special build contest, and interactive experiences for both in-person and online attendees.

>> HashiCorp Waypoint 0.10 introduces several significant new features, including custom pipelines, which allow users to define their own pipeline execution order and include user-defined execution steps through the exec plugin. This tech preview feature enables more control over the deployment process for complex applications. Additionally, the release notes highlight improvements to the Nomad integration, including service discovery support and improved logging capabilities for on-demand runner logs. Furthermore, Waypoint's CLI now guides users through the process of crafting their first waypoint.hcl file with an interactive generator, making it easier for new users to create a basic configuration for their app. Overall, these updates aim to enhance the platform's flexibility and usability for developers working with Kubernetes, Amazon ECS, HashiCorp Nomad, and other platforms.

HashiCorp has announced 15 new integrations for its Consul ecosystem, nearly doubling the number of integrations from the previous quarter. These new integrations include verified integrations with HCP Consul, CloudFabrix, DNSimple, F5, Lightstep, Logz.io, New Relic, Snappyflow, Sophos, and Zabbix, as well as two new HashiCorp Consul Enterprise integrations. The new integrations focus on network infrastructure automation and observability integrations, highlighting the growing importance of Consul in managing complex networks and providing deep insights into cloud-managed environments. HCP Consul, a fully managed platform operated by HashiCorp, allows organizations to get Consul up and running quickly without managing Consul servers themselves, and its verified integrations showcase its growing ecosystem.

The general availability of HashiCorp Consul-Terraform-Sync 0.7 marks a significant milestone in the maturity of Network Infrastructure Automation solutions. This release combines the functionality of HashiCorp Terraform and HashiCorp Consul to eliminate manual ticket-based systems across on-premises and cloud environments. CTS enables teams to manage Day 2 networking tasks by integrating Consul's catalog to register services into the system, triggering a Terraform run that automates updates and deployments for load balancers, firewall policies, and other service-defined networking components. The new features in CTS 0.7 include high availability, failover behavior, and improved task-lifecycle APIs and CLIs. With the implementation of a leader/follower system, CTS is now highly available, redundant, and capable of handling failures gracefully. This release provides a more robust and reliable solution for automating network infrastructure management, enabling teams to focus on higher-level tasks while maintaining the stability and security of their networks.

Drift Detection is a feature in Terraform Cloud that continuously checks infrastructure state to detect and notify operators of any changes outside of the tracked and versioned workflows, helping organizations manage their infrastructure throughout its lifecycle. Drift occurs when someone changes infrastructure outside of the tracked workflows, creating untracked differences between the actual infrastructure and its recorded state, which can lead to unexpected issues such as application crashes, deployments failing, and wasted costs. Drift Detection in Terraform Cloud provides a single source of truth, enabling teams to increase efficiency while reducing risk related to security, compliance, and operational consistency. The feature detects changes in resources, notifies the right infrastructure owners with customizable notifications, and allows remediation directly from the Terraform Drift tab. With its public beta phase complete, the feature has been refined with UI improvements, including new views such as a "Drift" designation in workspace index listings and additional context on drift detection, making it easier for organizations to reap the benefits of infrastructure as code.

To encourage success for everyone involved in an internship program, a manager should prioritize making the experience inclusive and rewarding for all parties. Developing a clear plan with defined objectives, providing multiple points of support such as mentorship and buddy assignments, and creating detailed, goal-oriented internship projects can help achieve this. By doing so, managers can integrate interns into their team's workflow, ensure they receive proper training and guidance, and ultimately retain them after the internship period. The benefits of internships include increased retention rates, improved career development opportunities, and a more diverse and skilled workforce.

The HashiCorp Terraform Registry is evolving to improve consistency, clarity, and scalability by making changes to module and provider tagging. This change aims to provide better visibility and clarity to users in the registry, especially for partner-owned modules. The "verified" tag has been removed from all Terraform modules, and a new "partner" tag has been added to indicate that the module is owned and developed by HashiCorp's cloud and technology partners. Similarly, partner-owned providers have replaced the "verified" tag with a "partner" tag. This change aims to help users identify reusable components that meet their requirements in an increasingly growing Terraform Registry ecosystem.

The 13 most interesting HashiConf Global sessions are focused on enterprise cloud platform teams, covering topics such as infrastructure lifecycle management, zero trust security, modern service networking, and increasing release velocity. Sessions will cover practical advice from industry practitioners, including managing Terraform Enterprise at scale, adopting zero trust security models, and architecting geo-distributed mobile edge applications with Consul. The sessions also highlight emerging tools like HashiCorp Waypoint, which aims to provide a "paved path to production" for developers, and HCP Boundary, which helps platform teams deliver authenticated access to remote systems without users possessing valid machine credentials. These talks will be presented by experts from top companies such as Indeed, Discover Financial Services, Snowflake, and AWS Edge Computing, and will take place at HashiConf Global in Los Angeles and online on October 4-6, 2022.

The release of vault-k8s 1.0 marks a significant milestone in the integration of HashiCorp Vault with Kubernetes, allowing enterprises to augment the security model of their secrets in Kubernetes clusters. The project has introduced multiple Helm charts for easy deployment, a mutating admissions controller that injects a Vault agent as a sidecar, and a CSI secrets provider that renders Vault secrets as Kubernetes secrets. A new secrets engine was also introduced, providing just-in-time secure access to Kubernetes clusters without the need for manually generated service-account tokens. The project has gained popularity with over 500 GitHub stars and is now at version 1.0, offering stability in terms of APIs and backwards compatibility. The team plans to continue iterating on features and community engagement, seeking feedback from practitioners to improve the integration between Vault and Kubernetes.

HashiCorp Vault is a popular platform for providing cryptographic services centrally, standardizing cryptographic tools, reducing the total cost of ownership, and making auditing easier. By centralizing encryption tools in a self-service platform, developers can lower their cost of ownership, follow best practices, and make auditing more efficient. The solution involves delivering encryption as a service (EaaS), where security architects manage centralized policy-driven cryptographic services that enforce corporate governance and security standards. This approach enables developers to focus on writing domain code without worrying about cryptography, reduces the risk of exposure for cryptographic keys, and simplifies key management and maintenance. Additionally, it makes modern cryptography available to legacy platforms and runtimes, reducing the cost of maintaining cryptographic standards in the enterprise.