Automating Kubernetes with IaC: Ansible & Terraform

Managing Kubernetes clusters at scale requires automation. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Ansible and Terraform are essential for reproducible, version-controlled deployments.

The IaC Workflow

My approach combines the strengths of both tools:

• Terraform: Provisioning cloud resources (VMs, networks, storage)
• Ansible: Configuration management and application deployment

Provisioning with Terraform

Terraform's declarative syntax makes it ideal for defining infrastructure state. Here's how I provision a Kubernetes cluster on VMware:

Configuration with Ansible

Once the VMs are provisioned, Ansible handles the Kubernetes installation and configuration:

• Installing container runtimes (containerd)
• Bootstrapping kubeadm
• Deploying CNI plugins (Calico, Flannel)

GitOps for Application Deployment

Combine IaC with GitOps tools like ArgoCD for continuous deployment. This ensures that your cluster state always matches the desired state in Git.

Best Practices

• Store Terraform state in remote backends (S3, Azure Blob)
• Use Ansible Vault for secrets management
• Implement CI/CD pipelines for IaC validation and testing