We’re excited about a number of new features and capabilities we’ve released in IBM Cloud Schematics and the IBM Cloud Terraform Provider. 

IBM Cloud Schematics is a completely free Infrastructure-as-Code automation service available on IBM Cloud. Here are the highlights:

• Streamline installation of the IBM Cloud Provider by pulling directly from the Terraform Registry
• Use Terraform v0.13 in IBM Cloud Schematics
• Request access to closed-beta of Ansible Actions in IBM Cloud Schematics
• Manage integrations to IBM Cloud services for logging, monitoring and more directly in Schematics

Let’s cover these in more detail.

Support for Terraform Registry

The IBM Cloud Terraform Provider is available for download directly from the Terraform Registry. If you’re using Terraform v0.13 or greater, you can now configure third-party providers directly in your Terraform code and dynamically pull the specified version of the provider. Let’s take a look at how it works:

1. Ensure you’ve installed Terraform v0.13 or later. You can check your version by running terraform version.
2. Place the following block in your Terraform config:

   terraform {
     required_providers {
       ibm = {
         source = "IBM-Cloud/ibm"
         version = "1.19.0"
       }
     }
   }

3. Run terraform init.

That’s it! You no longer need to manually install and configure the IBM Cloud Provider, and you can specify the exact version you want to work against.

You can always find the latest versions and changes to the provider on GitHub.

In addition, the Terraform Registry also supports modules — self-contained packages of Terraform configurations. If you’re looking for an easy way to start creating automations on IBM Cloud following best-practice configurations, check out the modules published on the registry.

IBM official modules are listed under the terraform-ibm-modules org.

Support for Terraform v0.13 in Schematics

IBM Cloud Schematics now supports Terraform v0.13. Terraform v0.13 comes with a number of improvements that you can learn about in the Hashicorp announcement. As described above, with v0.13, you can now specify third-party providers or modules within your Terraform config. This allows you to utilize any third-party provider or modules dynamically pulled from the Terraform Registry for use within Schematics.

You can now choose Terraform v0.13 when configuring your Schematics workspace.

Ansible Actions in IBM Cloud Schematics: Closed beta

Red Hat’s open-source Ansible is an industry leader for infrastructure automation. Primarily used for configuration management, Ansible gracefully picks up where Terraform leaves off. We’re currently in closed beta for Ansible Actions support in IBM Cloud Schematics. If you’re interested in getting early access, reach out to svennam@us.ibm.com.

Integrations support in Schematics

You can now view and manage integrations with LogDNA, Sysdig, Activity Tracker and Key Management capabilities directly within Schematics. This includes the ability to create services for Platform Logging (provided by LogDNA) and Platform Metrics (provided by Sysdig). Check out the integrations tab in your Schematics dashboard today.