November 2022 Summaries

AWS re:Invent 2022 has seen significant developments in the Terraform and AWS relationship, with HashiCorp showcasing its zero trust security and networking capabilities on AWS. The Terraform AWS provider has surpassed one billion downloads, a milestone reached through continuous validation, no-code provisioning, native OPA support for Terraform Cloud, and other new features. HashiCorp also launched the Cloud Development Kit for Terraform (CDKTF), an open source tool that provides a developer-friendly workflow for deploying cloud infrastructure with Terraform. The provider continues to expand with high-quality weekly releases supported by contributions from the community and AWS, including support for new AWS services such as Amazon OpenSearch Service, Network Manager, and Amazon RDS Reserved Instances. Launch Day support for new AWS services was also announced at re:Invent, including features like RDS Blue/Green, Lambda SnapStart, and ECS Service Connect. AWS and HashiCorp continue to partner to bring AWS resources to Terraform users faster, with the upcoming AWS Cloud Control provider expected to increase resource coverage and reduce time to support new capabilities.

HashiCorp has been actively collaborating with AWS on various security and networking initiatives, including securing workloads in EKS with HashiCorp Vault, providing a simple workflow to encrypt data in flight and at rest. The company's enterprise secrets management solution, Vault, was also integrated with AWS Lambda Extension Caching, which enables easier access to Vault secrets for edge applications. Additionally, HashiCorp has partnered with AWS to build an add-on repository that lets users enable and start up Vault instances in Kubernetes. Furthermore, the company has announced new caching features for Vault Lambda extension caching, allowing for secure local access to leased secrets. HashiCorp's Boundary product was also beta-released at AWS re:Inforce, providing a way to securely access critical systems with fine-grained authorizations based on trusted identities. The company won the AWS Security Partner of the Year in North America award, validating its vision for delivering zero trust security to cloud infrastructure. HashiCorp Consul is a cloud services networking platform that helps discover, securely connect, and improve the resiliency/visibility of services across various AWS services. The company has also released updates on Consul on Amazon ECS, including support for multi-tenancy, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and mesh gateways. HashiCorp's Cloud Platform provides a fully managed platform available for HashiCorp Terraform, Vault, Consul, Boundary, Waypoint, and Packer, offering a zero trust security solution fully deployed on the cloud, combining HCP Vault, HCP Consul, and HCP Boundary to secure applications, networks, and people.

HashiCorp Waypoint is an application release orchestrator that simplifies the deployment, management, and observation of applications on any infrastructure platform, including HashiCorp Nomad, Kubernetes, or Amazon ECS. To automate the application release process, developers can use plugins to connect with other HashiCorp tools such as Terraform Cloud, Consul, and Vault. This removes the need for explicit configuration communication between teams, reducing miscommunication and errors during the CI/CD process. By using Waypoint plugins, developers can work faster and smarter, without relying heavily on infrastructure teams for routine tasks. The platform is highly extensible, allowing users to build their own plugins or use existing ones, and is available in both open source and HCP (HashiCorp Cloud Platform) versions.

HashiCorp's Terraform has surpassed one billion downloads, marking a significant milestone in the tool's history. The growth of Terraform can be attributed to its open-source ecosystem and the community around it, which includes thousands of contributors, ambassadors, users, and partners. The collaboration between HashiCorp and AWS has also played a crucial role in expanding Terraform's capabilities and adoption. With more than 2,500 providers and 10,000 modules available, Terraform is now widely adopted as an infrastructure-as-code tool. The company continues to develop new integrations with AWS, including the Cloud Development Kit for Terraform and the AWS Cloud Control provider, which aims to bring new services to Terraform faster. These developments aim to help customers work faster, take advantage of more services and features, and provide developer-friendly ways to deploy cloud infrastructure.

HashiTalks, an annual 24-hour virtual event, returns on February 16, 2023, featuring experts sharing knowledge on using HashiCorp tools to codify infrastructure, secure data, and deploy applications. The call for speakers is open until December 7, 2022, encouraging community members to submit their ideas and receive support and coaching. The event aims to be a safe space for speakers, with opportunities for self-paced learning and improvement through recorded talks and speaker-enablement sessions. Attendees can join in real-time chat, ask questions, and interact with speakers, while also accessing HashiCorp Resources for post-event viewing. The event is designed to empower new speakers and provide a platform for community members to share their experiences and learn from others.

HashiCorp Consul now offers general availability support for mesh services invoking AWS Lambda functions, enabling consistent workflows for encrypted communications between mesh services and Lambda serverless functions. This release integrates Consul's service mesh capabilities with AWS Lambda's serverless function technology, allowing users to register Lambda functions into the Consul service mesh and benefit from its reliability, observability, and security features. The integration is enabled in Consul 1.14 and provides a public beta for AWS Lambda functions invoking mesh services. With this release, developers can now have consistent workflows for encrypted communications between mesh services and Lambda functions, addressing challenges such as service discovery, secure communication, and operational workflows.

HashiCorp Consul 1.14 introduces the Consul dataplane, a simplified deployment model on Kubernetes that eliminates the need for node-level Consul clients, improving resiliency and operational efficiency. The new architecture also enables mesh traffic management across cluster peers, simplifying deployments and reducing network requirements. Additionally, Consul 1.14 includes service failover enhancements, allowing operators to address more complex failover scenarios and providing improved resiliency compared to WAN-federated datacenters. These features are designed to simplify Consul deployment, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the overall value of HashiCorp's service networking solution for organizations.

HashiCorp has added support for run tasks in the Terraform Registry, allowing users to discover and integrate third-party tools and services into their existing Terraform workflow. This feature enables users to access reusable, tested integrations that provide cost estimation, security monitoring, compliance checks, drift detection, no-code provisioning, and more within their Terraform deployment pipelines. To get started with run tasks, users need a HashiCorp Terraform Cloud account at the Team & Governance or Business tiers, or a Terraform Enterprise license, and can take advantage of free trials for paid tiers. Run tasks can enhance Terraform workflows in various ways, including cost management, drift detection, infrastructure management, low-code/no-code workflows, policy compliance, and security and authentication.

The Cloud Development Kit for Terraform (CDKTF) 0.14 release introduces several improvements to make it easier to add and upgrade Terraform providers, including the ability to auto-generate code bindings for large providers in minutes, new provider upgrade command, improved pre-built provider packages, and faster get commands. The new provider upgrade command allows users to update installed providers while respecting dependencies, and the select pre-built providers when initializing a new project feature enables users to directly install pre-built providers when setting up a new CDKTF project. Additionally, more pre-built provider packages are now available for all official Terraform providers.

HashiCorp and AWS are partnering to help companies advance their cloud operating model, with HashiCorp tools being essential to AWS customers. The partnership includes the AWS Terraform provider, which has been downloaded 1.3 billion times, and collaboration on CDK for Terraform on AWS, as well as integration of HashiCorp Consul and Cloud Platform (HCP) products with AWS services. HashiCorp will be sponsoring AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, where attendees can expect breakout sessions, expert talks, product demos, and technical talks, including sessions on service networking and zero trust security, Terraform, Vault, Consul, and more. The event will also feature a full lineup of HashiCorp product demos and a personal demo opportunity at the HashiCorp booth.

Lisa Argueta and Joshua Blair, both veterans who served in the military, found community at HashiCorp through its Employee Resource Groups. Their experiences in the military taught them valuable skills such as problem-solving, leadership, and empathy, which they have applied to their careers at HashiCorp. The Veterans ERG has provided a supportive network for Lisa and Joshua, allowing them to connect with others who share similar experiences and advocate for more veterans joining the company. Lisa appreciates HashiCorp's flexibility and willingness to support her growth, while Joshua enjoys the camaraderie and challenge of working on high-quality products that benefit the global team. They plan to recognize Veterans Day by showing gratitude to their loved ones and co-workers who have served.

Hashi:Blend, an employee resource group at HashiCorp, aims to create a space for employees who identify as multiracial, multicultural, and/or multiethnic, along with folks with mixed families and transracial adoptees. The group's founders and members share their personal experiences and the drive to learn collectively versus on their own, celebrating differences and promoting opportunities to connect and learn from each other about the mixed experience. The ERG seeks to create a community where its members can unpack and heal from their mixed experiences, fostering a culture at HashiCorp that embraces people's differences, particularly in terms of racial fluidity, codeswitching, and accessing cultures across generations. Through this space, members aim to find connections, share stories, discuss complex topics about identities, and grow together, celebrating the intricacies of race and culture.

The introduction of 5G networking brings significant shifts in security, particularly with the adoption of Service-Based Architecture (SBA) control plane. This shift requires carriers to implement identity-based security solutions that are well-suited for microservice environments, leveraging proven cloud concepts and standard RESTful APIs. HashiCorp's suite of products, including HashiCorp Vault, is well-positioned to cater to a variety of 5G core use cases, with tight Kubernetes integrations and a focus on zero trust networking. The PKI functionality in HashiCorp Vault provides full management of identity-based security, enabling secure SBI communications through mTLS authentication and authorization via OAuth2 tokens. Additionally, the integration of Vault with Kubernetes and other cloud providers enables scalable and flexible deployment options for 5G networks, reducing software development effort required to achieve compliance.