February 2022 Summaries

Pulumi has introduced a series of updates and enhancements across its platform, focusing on improving user experience and functionality. The Helm Release for Kubernetes has reached general availability, following positive user feedback, allowing Pulumi users to manage their Kubernetes footprint more effectively. A public preview of Update Plans has been launched, providing a guarantee that the operations previewed will be executed, ensuring infrastructure changes are consistent and predictable. Users can now disable default providers on a per-stack basis, allowing for more explicit control over provider usage, and wildcard support has been added for the `pulumi up --target` command, streamlining resource management. Additionally, the Pulumi Service has undergone a revamp in its sign-up and sign-in processes for improved user navigation, and the resource detail pages now prominently display the resource URN, facilitating easier management and integration with commands.

Pulumi has introduced a new feature called RetainOnDelete, which allows resources to remain in the cloud provider even after being deleted from the Pulumi stack. This feature addresses user needs for retaining resources beyond the lifecycle of Pulumi programs and enables various new workflows, such as supporting data storage policies and managing shared resources. For instance, companies with data retention policies can use RetainOnDelete to ensure resources like S3 buckets remain available for backup. Additionally, it allows for the temporary management of externally owned resources without deleting them after use. RetainOnDelete also helps resolve provider-related issues by marking problematic resources, thus avoiding unnecessary delete operations. This new resource option can be set within the Pulumi program, offering a flexible solution for resource lifecycle management.

Erik Näslund shares his experience of migrating from Terraform to Pulumi, highlighting the benefits and challenges encountered during the transition. Initially content with Terraform, Erik found its reliance on the Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL) limiting, as he preferred using familiar programming languages like Python for defining infrastructure. Pulumi's support for multiple languages such as TypeScript, Python, and Go, combined with its ability to group resources into logical components, appealed to him, allowing for greater flexibility and ease in organizing code. The migration process involved manual rewriting of Terraform code into Pulumi due to limitations of automated tools, but this allowed for better code structuring. Erik appreciated Pulumi's faster performance, robust documentation, and the convenience of its web console for infrastructure management. Despite some issues with Gitlab integration and potential concerns about Pulumi's pricing model, Erik found the transition to Pulumi enhanced his productivity and enjoyment in managing infrastructure.

Pulumi has introduced the public preview of Update Plans, a feature that ensures the operations previewed with `pulumi preview` will be executed exactly as anticipated during the `pulumi up` operation, providing stronger guarantees for infrastructure changes. This feature addresses concerns about discrepancies between previewed changes and actual updates, especially in critical environments, by saving the preview results to a plan file, which restricts subsequent updates to the actions specified in the plan. Update Plans can also be integrated into CI workflows, allowing for infrastructure changes to be reviewed and validated similarly to code changes through pull or merge request processes. While currently in public preview, Pulumi encourages its use in non-critical scenarios and invites user feedback through GitHub Discussions.

In September 2021, Pulumi announced the public preview of the Helm Release resource in its Kubernetes provider, and following positive community feedback, it is now generally available as of version 3.15.0. This new resource, using the Helm SDK, offers full Helm features, the ability to import existing Helm releases, and CLI interaction, complementing the existing Helm Chart component. Users are provided with a guide to choose between the Chart and Helm Release resources depending on their use case. The Helm Release resource allows for hierarchical values specification and supports both typical and advanced configurations, such as private registries. Significant improvements from the preview phase include optional values and repository options, support for local charts, and loading values from YAML files. Pulumi offers extensive documentation and community support for users to explore the Helm Release resource further.

The article describes a process for deploying a Kubernetes cluster using k3s on a DigitalOcean droplet, utilizing a newly announced Command package to streamline the deployment. The procedure involves creating an SSH key, registering it with DigitalOcean, and generating a cloud-init configuration to ensure necessary tools like curl are installed on the machine. The cloud-init scripts also configure the droplet to bind the public IP address and install k3s. Traditionally, obtaining the kubeconfig file from the virtual machine required static manifests, but with the new Command package, users can execute a remote command to fetch the kubeconfig, which enhances the integration with Pulumi for Kubernetes resource management. The article concludes with deploying an nginx server by setting up a Kubernetes provider using the fetched kubeconfig, demonstrating the flexibility and utility of the Command package for executing commands both locally and remotely.