OpenTofu Consulting

OpenTofu is an open-source infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tool used to define, provision, and manage cloud and on-prem infrastructure using declarative configuration, and is developed and maintained by the OpenTofu community under the Linux Foundation. It enables teams to model infrastructure as version-controlled code, plan and review changes before applying them, and manage resource lifecycles across a wide range of providers and services. Common capabilities include reusable modules, state management for tracking deployed resources, dependency graphing to apply changes in the correct order, and automation-friendly workflows for CI/CD. Typical use cases include provisioning cloud environments, standardizing platform baselines, and managing multi-environment deployments (dev/stage/prod) with consistent configuration. For more detail on how it works and how it compares in the IaC ecosystem, see the official OpenTofu documentation.

• With Infrastructure as Code, you can gain an insight into your infrastructure status swiftly, as it serves as a living document offering a snapshot of your systems' state and configuration.
• Infrastructure as Code allows you to improve your infrastructure using code itself, making the process of introducing new services, upgrading existing ones, or modifying configurations flexible and adaptable.
• Infrastructure as Code facilitates making system-wide modifications efficiently, ensuring consistency across your entire system and reducing error potential.
• Continuous integration principles from software development can be applied to your infrastructure management through Infrastructure as Code, enabling automation in testing and deployment of infrastructure changes.
• Infrastructure as Code enables you to provision entire systems from scratch quickly and reliably, proving to be advantageous in testing, development, and disaster recovery scenarios.
• Monitoring infrastructure state and implementing incremental changes is made possible with Infrastructure as Code, improving auditability and change management.
• By automating repetitive tasks and reducing manual intervention, Infrastructure as Code reduces potential human errors and increases efficiency.
• Infrastructure as Code enhances collaboration and transparency by serving as a common language understandable by both operations and development teams.
• Infrastructure as Code allows for the creation of standard templates for your infrastructure setup that can be used to replicate your environments consistently across different stages of the application lifecycle and multiple projects.
• Infrastructure as Code improves overall security posture and simplifies compliance auditing by allowing the incorporation of security configurations and compliance requirements directly into your infrastructure code.

OpenTofu is an open-source infrastructure-as-code tool for defining, provisioning, and managing cloud and on-prem infrastructure using declarative configuration. It is used to standardize infrastructure changes, improve repeatability, and reduce operational risk through version-controlled automation.

• Declarative provisioning with state management supports reliable create, update, and destroy workflows across environments.
• Strong ecosystem compatibility with Terraform-style providers and modules enables broad coverage of cloud services, SaaS APIs, and on-prem systems.
• Plan and apply workflow provides a reviewable change set that fits well with pull request based approvals and audit requirements.
• Modular configuration patterns encourage reusable infrastructure building blocks and consistent platform standards.
• Remote state backends and locking help coordinate team changes and prevent conflicting updates in shared environments.
• Drift detection via refresh and plan highlights configuration divergence from real infrastructure, improving compliance and stability.
• Policy and guardrail integration options support enforcing conventions like tagging, network boundaries, and approved instance types.
• Works well in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments, including ephemeral environments for testing and preview.
• Provider version pinning and explicit dependency modeling improve reproducibility and reduce unexpected changes during upgrades.

OpenTofu is a good fit when teams want Terraform-compatible workflows while prioritizing truly open-source governance and long-term control over their IaC toolchain. Typical use cases include multi-account cloud foundations, Kubernetes cluster provisioning, network and IAM baselines, and repeatable environment bootstrapping.

Alternatives commonly considered include HashiCorp Terraform, Pulumi, AWS CloudFormation, and Azure Bicep. For background on infrastructure-as-code practices, see https://opentofu.org/.

Our experience with OpenTofu helped us build repeatable infrastructure delivery patterns, internal modules, and review practices that made infrastructure-as-code easier to operate across teams and environments while staying truly open-source.

Some of the things we did include:

• Migrated existing Terraform estates to OpenTofu with minimal downtime, including state handling, provider pinning, and CI/CD pipeline updates.
• Built reusable OpenTofu module libraries for common platform components (networking, IAM, compute, data services) with consistent naming, tagging, and outputs.
• Implemented policy and guardrails using OPA to validate plans, enforce conventions, and prevent risky changes before apply.
• Integrated OpenTofu into GitOps-style workflows with Argo CD for environment promotion and auditable change management.
• Standardized remote state backends, locking, and secrets handling, including secure storage patterns with HashiCorp Vault.
• Provisioned Kubernetes foundations and cluster add-ons, then managed platform configuration alongside Kubernetes and Helm releases.
• Created multi-account/multi-subscription landing zone patterns for AWS/Azure/GCP, including shared services, network segmentation, and least-privilege access models.
• Designed HA/DR-ready infrastructure definitions with clear recovery steps, environment parity checks, and automated validation runs.
• Improved delivery reliability by adding plan/apply separation, drift detection, and pull-request checks with actionable feedback for reviewers.
• Ran enablement sessions for platform and application teams, covering module usage, debugging failed applies, and safe refactoring strategies.

This delivery work helped us accumulate significant knowledge across migrations, platform builds, governance, and day-2 operations, and it enables us to deliver high-quality OpenTofu setups that are maintainable, auditable, and practical for real teams to run.

Some of the things we can help you do with OpenTofu include:

• Assess your current infrastructure-as-code estate and deliver a practical review report covering maintainability, drift risk, and operational gaps.
• Create an OpenTofu adoption roadmap, including repo structure, module strategy, environments, and rollout milestones.
• Migrate Terraform workflows to OpenTofu with minimal disruption, including state handling, provider compatibility checks, and CI updates.
• Implement production-ready OpenTofu projects with reusable modules, remote state, and automated plans/applies via GitHub Actions.
• Establish security and compliance guardrails with policy-as-code, least-privilege access, secrets handling, and change approvals.
• Optimize cost and performance by right-sizing resources, standardizing tagging, improving dependency graphs, and reducing unnecessary churn.
• Improve reliability with environment promotion patterns, drift detection, safe rollbacks, and consistent release processes.
• Harden operations with documentation, runbooks, and observability hooks to make infrastructure changes auditable and diagnosable.
• Enable your team through hands-on training, pairing, and best-practice workshops to accelerate confident day-to-day delivery.