Using the Octopus Terraform Provider to create standards

In this article, Bob Walker, the Field CTO at Octopus Deploy, outlines the challenges and solutions in managing the growing Octopus Deploy samples instance, which had become difficult to maintain due to its expansion to over 30 spaces. By employing the Octopus Deploy Terraform Provider, Walker's team established standards to streamline maintenance tasks such as password rotation and resource updates, which were previously time-consuming. The article details the creation of a new instance, "samples-admin," to house runbooks and apply Terraform templates across all spaces, thus enforcing system-wide and space-specific standards. Walker explains the nuances of using Terraform, including resource management, state file handling, and importing pre-existing items, to optimize the infrastructure and reduce manual work. The implementation of these practices has significantly reduced the time required for maintenance tasks and improved the consistency and efficiency of deployments across the samples instance.