Getting Started with Terraform for Azure

What Is Terraform?

Terraform by HashiCorp is an open-source Infrastructure as Code tool that uses HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) to define and provision infrastructure across multiple cloud providers.

Setting Up for Azure

Install Terraform

# macOS
brew install terraform

# Windows (Chocolatey)
choco install terraform

# Linux
sudo apt-get install terraform

Authenticate to Azure

az login
az account set --subscription "your-subscription-id"

Your First Configuration

Create main.tf:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source  = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "~> 3.0"
    }
  }

  required_version = ">= 1.0"
}

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "rg" {
  name     = "rg-demo"
  location = "uksouth"

  tags = {
    environment = "dev"
    managed_by  = "terraform"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_storage_account" "storage" {
  name                     = "stdemo${random_string.suffix.result}"
  resource_group_name      = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  location                 = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  account_tier             = "Standard"
  account_replication_type = "LRS"
  min_tls_version          = "TLS1_2"
}

resource "random_string" "suffix" {
  length  = 6
  special = false
  upper   = false
}

output "storage_account_name" {
  value = azurerm_storage_account.storage.name
}

Core Workflow

terraform init      # Download providers and initialise backend
terraform plan      # Preview changes
terraform apply     # Apply changes (with confirmation)
terraform destroy   # Remove all managed resources

Variables

Define in variables.tf:

variable "location" {
  type        = string
  default     = "uksouth"
  description = "The Azure region for resources"
}

variable "environment" {
  type        = string
  description = "Environment name (dev, test, prod)"

  validation {
    condition     = contains(["dev", "test", "prod"], var.environment)
    error_message = "Environment must be dev, test, or prod."
  }
}

Supply values via:

• terraform.tfvars file
• -var="key=value" command line
• TF_VAR_key environment variables

State Management

Terraform tracks resources in a state file. For team use, store state remotely:

terraform {
  backend "azurerm" {
    resource_group_name  = "rg-terraform-state"
    storage_account_name = "stterraformstate"
    container_name       = "tfstate"
    key                  = "demo.tfstate"
  }
}

Best Practices

1. Always use remote state for shared infrastructure
2. Lock your provider versions to avoid unexpected changes
3. Use terraform plan before every apply
4. Tag all resources for cost tracking and ownership
5. Organise code into logical files: main.tf, variables.tf, outputs.tf
6. Use modules for reusable infrastructure patterns