How to Secure Your Terraform State File in Azure

Terraform has become the standard for managing cloud infrastructure, and with good reason. It provides consistent, repeatable deployments and integrates with almost every cloud provider. But there’s one piece that’s often overlooked until it causes problems: the Terraform state file.  Your terraform.tfstate file is more than just metadata — it’s the single source of truthContinue reading "How to Secure Your Terraform State File in Azure"

Implementing Test-Driven Development with Terraform

Test-driven development (TDD) isn’t just for application code anymore; Terraform has a native testing framework that lets you plan/apply infrastructure from tests, make assertions in HCL, and even run post-deployment checks that behave like smoke tests. In this post I’ll show you how to do TDD with Terraform (TTD), when to use plan vs applyContinue reading "Implementing Test-Driven Development with Terraform"

Integrate Azure DevOps Pipelines with Private GitHub Repos

In cloud-native engineering, securely connecting Azure DevOps pipelines to private GitHub repositories is essential — especially when working with Terraform modules that define your infrastructure. This guide walks through how to establish that connection using PowerShell Core, ensuring a secure and maintainable setup. 🛠️ Prerequisites Before you begin, make sure you have: An Azure DevOps organisation andContinue reading "Integrate Azure DevOps Pipelines with Private GitHub Repos"

Managing Azure API Versions Dynamically Using Terraform

When developing APIs for consumption from many callers you can’t just throw in new major or minor updates without impacting how they are calling the API. Doing this can cause major issues so you would normally develop APIs in things like Azure Web Applications with versioning. The callers of the APIs can then reference theseContinue reading "Managing Azure API Versions Dynamically Using Terraform"

Validating Azure APIM in CI: A Practical Approach to Safe API Deployments

When deploying any code you want to validate it as much as you can before deploying. However with APIs in the APIM you can’t validate the XML Policy or the API logic until it is deployed into the API Management Service (APIM). This means you are limited to the options to validate the code, beforeContinue reading "Validating Azure APIM in CI: A Practical Approach to Safe API Deployments"

Progressive Learning in Coding: The Elevator Approach

Learning new skills can be hard and when working with complex technology like coding it can be confusing. Over the years as I have learnt more technologies, I have found an approach that has helped keep learning simple. This is something I was taught before when I first started and continue to pass on toContinue reading "Progressive Learning in Coding: The Elevator Approach"

Manage Complex Terraform Lists and Maps in a CSV Format

When developing some resource in Terraform you develop a large complex map or list of entries. This can become hard to manage, difficult to read and worst to maintain. An easier method is to convert these items into a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. This will condense something that could be 100's of lines down toContinue reading "Manage Complex Terraform Lists and Maps in a CSV Format"

Authenticating with Azure Databricks Service Principal

While working with Azure Databricks, I have discovered a few different ways to authenticate with the Service Principal. Some of these are documented and some I have found through a lot of searching, but none I have found a quick easy guide on how to action them all.  Setup  Step one is of course makeContinue reading "Authenticating with Azure Databricks Service Principal"