What is Scalr?

Scalr is a remote operations backend for Terraform and OpenTofu (OTF). Scalr executes runs and stores state centrally in Scalr or a backend of your choice allowing for easy collaboration across your organization. You can continue to use existing workflows that use the native Terraform or OpenTofu CLI, implement a GitOps workflow, or use No Code provisioning.

Why use Scalr?

Our goal is to allow you to centralize your administration while decentralizing your operations. The majority of our customers have a platform team that manages the overall infrastructure as code strategy, which enables the developers or application teams to focus on the actual code/execution and not the platform or process surrounding it. Scalr enables this through:

• Flexible workflows with the ability to execute Terraform through the native Terraform or OpenTofu CLI, VCS/PR automation, or No Code deployments.
• By default, Scalr is a remote operations backend, but it also supports any Terraform or OpenTofu remote backend, giving organizations more control and flexibility.
• Native integrations with tools like GitHub, Gitlab, Azure Devops, BitBucket, AWS Eventbridge, Open Policy Agent, Datadog, Okta, Slack, MS Teams, and more.
• Reporting on runs, drift, modules, providers, resources, OPA results, and more across all workspaces.
• A unique organizational model that provides isolated environments per team as well as inheritance and assignment of objects like variables, credentials, and OPA policies.
• Best-in-class security with custom RBAC roles and the most flexible provider credential solution with provider configurations.

All of these concepts and more are documented in detail in the remainder of the docs and you will find everything can also be managed through the Scalr Terraform provider, which is considered a best practice.

Where should I get started?

If you're developing code locally, we encourage you to use our VSCode extension that authenticates to Scalr and will show you a list of your workspaces, the latest run info, and more!

Typically, there are a few stages depending on your Terraform experience and the scale at which you are operating:

Onboard

Get familiar with creating a run in Scalr and what your workspace options are. Once you create a run, you'll get a good feeling of how you can collaborate with your colleagues in Scalr. Features to use:

• Decide on your remote backend strategy.
• Create a VCS provider to enable PR automation.
• Create provider configurations to pass credentials to the runs.
• Create a workspace.
• Create a run.
• Implement RBAC for any user type.
• Create environments, which is a way to segment teams and workspaces.

Standardize

Now that a workflow is in place, start creating standards for the deployments. Features to use:

• Once you understand which structure fits best, scale it by automating the deployment of it through the Scalr provider.
• View reports to understand usage and identify outliers.
• Add modules to the registry for consumption across your organization.
• Create OPA policies to enforce standards.

Operate

When you hit a certain scale you'll want to ensure smooth Terraform operations: Features to use:

• Run dashboards to see runs in a single place across the account environments
• Integrate with Datadog or AWS EventBridge to analyze Terraform events and react quickly.
• Integrate with Slack or Teams to notify users of run events and approve/deny runs directly from there.
• Deploy agents to execute runs on infrastructure in your own network.

You’re always welcome to open a Support Ticket if you have any questions or issues.