HashiCorp + Alkira: Modernized Network Delivery Through Fully Codified Infrastructure

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Overview

The place where applications, data, and systems intersect is the network, and automation today plays a more important role than ever in scaling the business and decreasing time-to-market. Enterprise networks today are managed in many ways with an increasing number of tools and methods. Public cloud adoption has ushered in additional design complexity and tooling along with an exponentially increasing rate of change.

These changes in the technology landscape have set automation as a critical business imperative. Enterprises are looking for the network to be a utility that offers the performance, reliability, and scale required to do business in the cloud era. The Alkira Platform offers the performance, scale, and elasticity to meet current and future demands, while HashiCorp’s Terraform provides the single interaction surface to operate Alkira with modern DevOps/CI/CD practices.

Benefits

Consolidate Interaction Surfaces
 Consolidate interaction touch-points by leveraging a single Terraform provider to provision Core, Edge, and Multi-Cloud networking powered by the Alkira solution.

Reduce Time-To-Provision
 Significantly reduce the time to provision by moving the full network into Infrastructure-as-Code operation leveraging the rich Alkira portal APIs.

Minimize Configuration Drift
 By leveraging Alkira with Terraform, the network becomes consistent with configuration drift being minimized through declarative infrastructure management.

Common Toolchain
 Embracing DevOps practices enables a joint toolchain across the entire infrastructure stack, including networking and security, with increased and safe collaboration.Standardized Deployment Workflow
 Reusable Terraform configurations, managed in version control, provide a consistent and controlled method for managing networking and security infrastructure lifecycle.

Solution

The Alkira and HashiCorp partnership delivers Infrastructure as Code (IaC) capabilities that automate the provisioning of network resources via declarative human-readable configuration files. This approach enables organizations to manage network infrastructure with the same modern practices used for application development.

Key Components:

Terraform Providers
 Terraform Providers offer the ability to define and provision resource types and data sources on the Alkira platform. Using Alkira’s Terraform Provider makes it simple to incorporate networking inside and across clouds, on-premises, and edge networks into new or existing DevOps pipelines.

Infrastructure as Code Benefits:

  • Version Control Systems (VCS) integration for collaboration and change history
  • Long-term traceability and consistent delivery capabilities
  • Advanced roll-back capabilities for rapid recovery
  • Declarative configuration that eliminates manual processes

Terraform Modules:

  • Manage tightly coupled components that share the same lifecycle
  • Private Module Registry for seamless control and collaboration
  • Standardized provisioning of Alkira services
  • Organized Workspaces with CI/CD trigger capabilities

Implementation Process:

  1. Leverage modules to simplify and standardize Alkira service provisioning
  2. Organize infrastructure collections into Workspaces
  3. Configure automated runs based on CI/CD triggers
  4. Provision global cloud backbone for end-to-end connectivity

Once Terraform is leveraged to provision the Alkira Platform, automating the entire network via Infrastructure as Code becomes a reality. Unified security policy can be codified into repeatable declarative blocks and deployed across the entire network, significantly reducing lead time and providing quicker recovery from faults.

Conclusion

The Alkira and HashiCorp partnership enables enterprises to transform their network operations through modern Infrastructure as Code practices. By combining Alkira’s global unified network infrastructure as-a-service with HashiCorp’s Terraform automation capabilities, organizations can provision core, edge, and cloud networking via fully repeatable infrastructure as code. This modernized approach sets the network up to be a business enabler, offering tremendous value in modernizing enterprise intake processes and operational workflows while ensuring the performance, reliability, and scale required for cloud-era business operations.

For more information or to speak with a network specialist, contact us.