Providers and Resources
Understand how Terraform interacts with various cloud and service providers, and how to define individual infrastructure components as resources.
Terraform's Core Building Blocks
Welcome! Terraform helps you manage your cloud infrastructure using code. But how does it actually talk to cloud providers and define what you want to build?
This lesson introduces two fundamental concepts: Providers and Resources. These are the basic building blocks of every Terraform configuration and crucial for understanding how IaC works.
What are Terraform Providers?
Think of a Provider as a plugin that allows Terraform to interact with an external service or API. This could be a cloud provider like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, or even services like GitHub, Kubernetes, or Datadog.
- Each provider understands the specific API calls needed for its service.
- It translates your desired infrastructure into actions the service can perform.
- You configure providers to tell Terraform which service to use and how to authenticate.
All lessons in this course
- Providers and Resources
- Variables and Outputs
- State Management Fundamentals
- Modules and Code Reuse