AWS CloudFormation vs Apache Tomcat

I personally am not a huge fan of vendor lock in for multiple reasons:

• I've seen cost saving moves to the cloud end up costing a fortune and trapping companies due to over utilization of cloud specific features.
• I've seen S3 failures nearly take down half the internet.
• I've seen companies get stuck in the cloud because they aren't built cloud agnostic.

I choose to use terraform for my cloud provisioning for these reasons:

• It's cloud agnostic so I can use it no matter where I am.
• It isn't difficult to use and uses a relatively easy to read language.
• It tests infrastructure before running it, and enables me to see and keep changes up to date.
• It runs from the same CLI I do most of my CM work from.

I was in a situation where I have to configure 40 RHEL servers 20 each for Apache HTTP Server and Tomcat server. My task was to

1. configure LVM with required logical volumes, format and mount for HTTP and Tomcat servers accordingly.
2. Install apache and tomcat.
3. Generate and apply selfsigned certs to http server.
4. Modify default ports on Tomcat to different ports.
5. Create users on RHEL for application support team.
6. other administrative tasks like, start, stop and restart HTTP and Tomcat services.

I have utilized the power of ansible for all these tasks, which made it easy and manageable.

Because Pulumi uses real programming languages, you can actually write abstractions for your infrastructure code, which is incredibly empowering. You still 'describe' your desired state, but by having a programming language at your fingers, you can factor out patterns, and package it up for easier consumption.