OpenTofu, a project that began as a response to HashiCorp’s licensing changes for Terraform, released its second stable version, 1.7.0, introducing several new features developed through close collaboration within its community.
However, if you’re outside of DevOps circles, you may not have heard of OpenTofu, so here’s a quick rundown of what it’s all about. It’s an open-source infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tool designed to allow users to define both cloud and on-prem resources in a human-readable configuration file format.
It supports a wide range of cloud platforms and services through APIs. It is compatible with existing Terraform modules, making it a potential drop-in replacement for Terraform in almost all cases. Now, back to the topic.
The latest release, OpenTofu 1.7.0, introduces several advanced features. Here they are.
- End-to-End State Encryption: This new feature ensures that your configuration files are secure, no matter where they are stored. With options to integrate with key management systems like AWS KMS, GCP KMS, and OpenBao, your sensitive data is protected from unauthorized access.
- Dynamic Provider-Defined Functions: This enhancement allows more flexibility by letting providers offer resources and custom functions that can be adapted based on your configuration. This means you can now integrate multiple programming languages directly into your OpenTofu projects, enriching the capabilities and integration possibilities.
- Loopable Import Blocks and Removal Blocks: These additions simplify managing large-scale infrastructure and the lifecycle of your resources, making it easier to handle bulk imports and safely decommission elements without disrupting your overall setup.
Looking ahead, the OpenTofu team is already laying the groundwork for version 1.8, focusing on highly requested features like early variable evaluation and more flexible module sourcing.
Finally, now that HashiCorp, along with its entire product range, including Terraform, is now part of IBM after being acquired by the tech giant for $6.4 billion, the role of the OpenTofu project seems even more important as a guarantee that the tool will have its free version available for everyone to use without licensing restrictions.
Check out the release announcement for more details and the complete list of novelties in OpenTofu 1.7.0.
