Remote states are a powerful tool for controlled information sharing across teams and tenants. Especially in complex cloud environments with multiple areas of responsibility, they enable transparency, reusability and scalability. At the same time, they pose risks: faulty states, access issues and unresolved dependencies can compromise the stability of the entire infrastructure. This article demonstrates how to avoid these challenges and how to lay the foundation for reliable, automated infrastructure through clear structures and proven practices.
Read more: Terraform @ Scale - Part 1d: Pitfalls and Best Practices in Multi-Tenant Environments
Through a combination of carefully structured remote backends, thoughtful output design, and targeted use of the terraform_remote_state data source, you can establish a controlled information flow between different tenant levels - all without compromising the isolation of individual tenants.
Effectively using remote state for information exchange between organizational units requires a well-thought-out configuration of the Terraform environment. Central to this is the selection and setup of a suitable storage backend for storing state data in what are known as state files.
Read more: Terraform @ Scale - Part 1c: Practical Implementation of Remote State Data Flows
In the previous part of this series, we explained the basics of the remote state concept in Terraform and how it can be used for information inheritance in multi-tenancy environments. Now we will illustrate this with a concrete architectural example.
Scaling Terraform across organizational boundaries requires a careful balance between standardization and flexibility. With clear team structures, well-thought-out governance, automated CI/CD processes, and appropriate tooling support, even complex multi-tenant infrastructures can be effectively managed. With this foundation, you can expand your Terraform practice from individual teams to the entire organization while ensuring consistency, security, and efficiency.
This is the first part of a series on designing multi-tenancy as Infrastructure-as-Code in large-scale infrastructures.
Target, one of the largest retailers in the USA with over 1,800 stores, faced a complex challenge: orchestrating workloads across multiple environments - from the public cloud to its own data centers and edge locations in stores. Kubernetes was already in use in some areas but was too complex and too expensive in terms of overall operational costs. The decision was ultimately made in favor of HashiCorp Nomad, which led to a significant acceleration of development cycles and a simplification of the infrastructure. This success story highlights a recurring pattern in the industry: companies are increasingly recognizing the value of lean, efficient orchestration solutions that focus on the essentials.
Read more: Nomad: Modern and Lightweight Workload Orchestration for Enterprises
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