Infrastructure Manager overview

Infrastructure Manager (Infra Manager) automates the deployment and management of Google Cloud infrastructure resources using Terraform.

Infra Manager allows you to deploy programmatically to Google Cloud, allowing you to use this service rather than maintaining a different toolchain to work with Terraform on Google Cloud.

A Terraform configuration defines the infrastructure. The configuration is deployed onto Google Cloud by Infra Manager, enabling you to manage resources using Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Infra Manager does not manage the deployment of applications onto your resources. To manage application deployment, you can use Google Cloud products like Cloud Build and Cloud Deploy. You can also use third-party tools or your own toolchain.

To work with Infra Manager, you should be familiar with Terraform. To learn more about Terraform, start with HashiCorp's What is Terraform?.

To learn more about Terraform with Google Cloud, see Terraform on Google Cloud.

Infra Manager and Infrastructure as Code

Infra Manager allows you to use IaC to manage the lifecycle of Google Cloud resources:

  • Terraform is defined declaratively in a Terraform configuration. This means that the configuration describes the end state of your infrastructure.
  • You can version the Terraform configuration either in a Git repository, or in a Cloud Storage bucket. Use Object Versioning to version configurations in a storage bucket.
  • Use Infra Manager to update your infrastructure deployment with revisions. For each revision, Infra Manager stores the following:
    • Logs
    • The configuration used to do the revision
    • The list of Google Cloud resources created by the revision
    • The state file created as part of each deployment and revision

See Infrastructure as Code on Google Cloud for more information about IaC.

How Infra Manager works

The following is a description of what happens in a simple scenario when you use Infra Manager to deploy infrastructure.

  1. The infrastructure resources to deploy onto Google Cloud are defined in a Terraform configuration.
    • You can create this file yourself, or use a configuration that is already written for Google Cloud. See Terraform and Infrastructure Manager for details.
    • You can store the Terraform configuration in a Cloud Storage bucket, a Git repository, or on your local machine.
  2. When you use Infra Manager to deploy resources from a Terraform configuration, you create a deployment. To create a deployment, Infra Manager:
    1. Validates the request. For example, it ensures that in your command you specified the location of the Terraform configuration.
    2. Creates a Cloud Build job using a container image. This image is owned and maintained by Google Cloud. See Runtime environment for details about the Cloud Build environment. The Cloud Build job automates the following tasks:
      1. Downloads the Terraform module from the storage bucket or Git repository.
      2. Initializes Terraform (terraform init)
      3. Validates the Terraform configuration (terraform validate)
      4. Actuates the configuration (terraform apply, or terraform destroy if you are deleting a deployment)
      5. Streams Cloud Build logs into a storage bucket created by Infra Manager.
      6. If the deployment fails, Infra Manager automatically retries the terraform init or terraform apply operations in certain scenarios, such as if it failed with intermittent network outages. These retries are performed a limited number of times.
    3. Creates a Cloud Storage bucket and stores metadata about the deployment. For more information about the deployment and metadata, see Deployment and revision overview.

  3. When the deployment is complete, the Google Cloud resources are provisioned as the configuration described them.

    You can query Infra Manager deployment for:

    • The status of the deployment.
    • The list of resources that are deployed as part of the deployment.
    • Details about individual resources that are part of a deployment.

Runtime environment

The runtime environment of Infra Manager is an ephemeral Cloud Build environment. Infra Manager executes Terraform commands in this Cloud Build environment, and then the environment is discarded.

The specific operating system, available software, and other configuration details of the Cloud Build environment are internal implementation details of Infra Manager, and can change at any time.

You can specify which supported version of Terraform to use for each deployment.

Don't include personal or sensitive information

Don't include personal or sensitive information in Terraform configuration values.

For additional information about Terraform configurations and sensitive data, see Terraform configuration values and sensitive data.

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