2024-06-11
Author: Simon Rondelez
In the ever-evolving landscape of infrastructure as code (IaC), staying adaptable and proactive is crucial. Our latest initiative involves transitioning from Terraform to OpenTofu, driven primarily by the recent licensing changes introduced in Terraform version 1.6.0 and beyond. Since end of May 2024, we are fully migrated to OpenTofu with version 1.6.2.
The licensing changes in Terraform versions 1.6.0 and above have forced us to explore alternatives that are compatible with our working. OpenTofu quickly emerged after the announcement from Hashicorp as a robust and community-driven alternative, ensuring that our IaC processes remain transparent and free from restrictive licenses.
Since Terraform is at the core of our infrastructure management, transitioning to OpenTofu required a well-structured plan to ensure a seamless shift. Our transition plan was divided into four key phases:
Platform Team Trials: Our platform team began experimenting with OpenTofu as a drop-in replacement for Terraform. This initial phase involved testing compatibility and functionality to ensure a smooth transition.
Team-Wide Adoption: Once the stacks were updated and tested, we moved the entire Skyscrapers (SkS) team to OpenTofu, ensuring everyone was on board with the new tool.
Automation Updates: After some more thourough testing, we proceeded with updating our automation. We updated our CI/CD pipelines to use OpenTofu instead of Terraform, ensuring that all deployments and infrastructure changes were managed through OpenTofu.
Customer Announcement: we informed all our customers of the transition, we shared the reasons why as well as some considerations and help documentation in case they would like to make adjustments to the infrastructure.
With the transition to OpenTofu complete, we are ready to evolve further and explore the new possibilities that OpenTofu offers starting with the upgrade to OpenTofu 1.7.0.
For more information on OpenTofu, explore the following resources:
This blog was originally posted on the Skyscrapers’ Changelog where we inform our customers about all the updates, improvements and new features added to our Reference Developer Platform.
