Infrastructure Migration Using Terraform

Project Kickoff Meeting (1 Hour)

Participants: Entire project team (stakeholders, project managers, technical leads)

Agenda:

• Introductions and overview of the workshop agenda.
• Discussion of project goals, scope, and success criteria.
• Establishing communication channels and project timeline.
• Assignment of roles and responsibilities.

Outcome: A shared understanding of the project's objectives, timeline, and roles.

Discovery Workshop (Half Day to Full Day)

Participants: All technical and managerial staff (developers, sysadmins, DBAs, network engineers, cloud owners, etc.)

Agenda:

• Overview of the existing cloud environment.
• Identification of key application tiers, components, infrastructure, data stores, and other relevant elements.
• Discussion and review of current deployment methods, scripts, or automation tools in use.
• Creation and review of existing Physical, Logical, and Data Flow diagrams.
• Inventory of current cloud resources, configurations, and dependencies.

Outcome: A comprehensive understanding of the current cloud environment, serving as the foundation for Terraform migration.

Documentation Preparation

Focused Workshops with Individual Teams (Full Day)

Participants:

• Morning: System Administrators
• Midday: Database Administrators
• Afternoon: Cloud Owners/Network Engineers

Agenda:

• System Administrators: Discuss current server configurations, operating systems, monitoring, and access management.
• Database Administrators: Outline database configurations, backups, replication, and performance tuning.
• Cloud Owners/Network Engineers: Review cloud resource allocation, VPC configurations, security groups, IAM roles, and network topology.

Outcome: Detailed requirements and configurations for each component, along with preliminary Terraform resource mappings.

Terraform State Import & Code Development (Full Day)

Participants: Terraform experts, project management, team leads

Agenda:

• Identify and classify existing resources to be imported into Terraform state.
• Map out dependency relationships between infrastructure elements
• Initial development of Terraform code to represent the existing environment based on gathered requirements and analysis.
• Review, refine and test code with project management and technical leads.
• Address any immediate concerns or changes.

Outcome: Terraform code that mirrors the existing environment setup and a strategy for managing state imports.

Validation of Imported Environment & Preparation for Testing (Full Day)

Participants: Terraform experts, technical staff

Agenda:

• Validate the imported environment by deploying Terraform and ensuring no discrepancies between the current environment and Terraform-managed state.
• Review the accuracy of resource mappings, configurations, and dependencies.
• Document any issues or discrepancies found during validation.
• Prepare the environment for testing, including setting up necessary testing scripts or procedures.

Outcome: A validated environment under Terraform management, ready for thorough testing.

Testing and Issue Remediation (Morning)

Participants: Technical staff, QA team

Agenda:

• Conduct functional and performance testing of the Terraform-managed environment.
• Identify and document any issues or discrepancies encountered.
• Remediate issues and refine Terraform code as necessary.

Outcome: A tested and stable environment managed by Terraform, with all major issues addressed.

Documentation & Knowledge Transfer (Afternoon)

Participants: Documentation team, technical staff

Agenda:

• Compile comprehensive documentation, including:
  • Terraform code structure and explanations
  • State management processes
  • Deployment and rollback procedures
  • Troubleshooting guides
  • Updated diagrams and architecture documentation
• Conduct a knowledge transfer session to ensure the client's team can manage and modify the Terraform setup independently.

Outcome: Complete and accessible documentation, along with a trained client team.

Delivery & Project Close Meeting (1 Hour)

Participants: Entire project team, stakeholders

Agenda:

• Review of the workshop outcomes and deliverables.
• Final discussion on the state of the environment and next steps.
• Collect feedback and address any final questions or concerns.
• Formal project closure and handover of all documentation and code.

Outcome: Official handover of the project, ensuring client satisfaction and readiness for ongoing Terraform management.