Workspaces and remote state in Terraform - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Manage Terraform Workspaces and Remote State

📖 Scenario: You are managing infrastructure for a small company. You want to keep your Terraform state files safe and organized by using workspaces and storing the state remotely in an S3 bucket.

🎯 Goal: Create a Terraform configuration that initializes an S3 backend for remote state storage and uses workspaces to separate environments.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Terraform backend configuration for an S3 bucket named my-terraform-state-bucket in the us-east-1 region.

Configure the backend to use the key terraform.tfstate.

Create a workspace named dev.

Create a workspace named prod.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Using remote state storage and workspaces helps teams safely manage infrastructure changes for multiple environments without conflicts.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals use Terraform backends and workspaces daily to organize infrastructure code and collaborate effectively.

1

Create Terraform backend configuration for S3

Write a Terraform terraform block that configures the backend to use an S3 bucket named my-terraform-state-bucket in the us-east-1 region with the key terraform.tfstate.

Terraform

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the terraform block with a backend "s3" configuration inside.

2

Initialize Terraform with backend

Add a comment line # Run terraform init to initialize the backend to remind yourself to initialize Terraform after backend configuration.

Terraform

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket = "my-terraform-state-bucket"
    key    = "terraform.tfstate"
    region = "us-east-1"
  }
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just add a comment reminding to run terraform init.

3

Create Terraform workspace dev

Add a comment line # Run terraform workspace new dev to remind yourself to create the dev workspace.

Terraform

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket = "my-terraform-state-bucket"
    key    = "terraform.tfstate"
    region = "us-east-1"
  }
}
# Run terraform init to initialize the backend
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Add a comment to remind creating the dev workspace with terraform workspace new dev.

4

Create Terraform workspace prod

Add a comment line # Run terraform workspace new prod to remind yourself to create the prod workspace.

Terraform

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket = "my-terraform-state-bucket"
    key    = "terraform.tfstate"
    region = "us-east-1"
  }
}
# Run terraform init to initialize the backend
# Run terraform workspace new dev
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Add a comment to remind creating the prod workspace with terraform workspace new prod.