Introduction

What is Scalr?

Scalr is a remote operations backend for Terraform and OpenTofu (OTF). Scalr executes runs and stores state centrally allowing for easy collaboration across your organization. You can continue to use existing workflows that use the native Terraform/OTF 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/OTF CLI, VCS/PR automation, or No Code deployments.
• Native integrations with tools like VCS providers, Open Policy Agent, Datadog, Okta, and Slack.
• Reporting on runs, 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?

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:

• 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 to analyze Terraform events and react quickly.
• Integrate with Slack to notify users of run events and approve/deny runs directly from there.
• 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.