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Brainboard Cloud | Changelog
Explore our Terraform development updates on our public roadmap changelog. Discover new features and integrations regularly. Check in weekly, monthly, or quarterly to see the latest enhancements benefiting your business.
We are committed to support more Terraform providers and as we received a lot of requests for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), we’ve just released it. So, now it is an officially supported provider.
This allows you use Brainboard to work with your Azure AD, like:
Adding a new AD group, or AD user or refer to existing ones
We listened to your feedback and just added Kubernetes terraform provider. You can now design your Kubernetes architecture and deploy it from Brainboard.
We've upgraded the method for listing resources within cloud accounts, specifically addressing limitations encountered with AWS resource visibility. Previously, our approach relied solely on the AWS Resource Tagging API, which necessitated at least one tag on a resource for it to be visible in query results. This method often led to incomplete resource listings, especially for untagged resources.
To provide a more comprehensive solution, we have integrated a new AWS API endpoint from the AWS Resource Explorer service. This service allows users to create indexes—or views—that can catalog all resources within a specified region of their cloud account. While it's important to note that this method supports a broader range of resource types than before, it does not encompass all AWS resources (see AWS documentation). However, it marks a significant improvement by including resources that were previously unimportable, such as IAM resources, and excluding deleted resources from the index, ensuring a cleaner and more accurate representation of current cloud assets.
This enhancement significantly enriches the AWS import functionality, allowing users to conduct more exhaustive resource imports into their accounts. The primary requirement for utilizing this new feature is the creation of a view within the AWS Resource Explorer, which is not set up by default. While detailed documentation is pending, users are encouraged to initiate by creating a default view as per AWS guidelines, a crucial step for achieving a comprehensive AWS import. This development aims to simplify resource management and improve the efficiency of cloud resource utilization for our users.
Now, as you drag resources into the design area, you can see the resources along with their text! We're adding all the capabilities necessary to ensure Brainboard meets your diagramming standards. preview resources during drag & drop
azurerm storage account Our AI-based Smart Autosuggestion feature comprehends the context of resource parameters, offering a precise and categorized list of values for efficient retrieval and selection. This enhancement accelerates your build process by minimizing the need to refer back to documentation. We've updated to the latest versions of Azure, AWS, and AzureStack, ensuring the inclusion of the exported attribute name (.name) where necessary in Azure. Additionally, we've eliminated redundant variable suggestions to streamline your experience.
Brainboard's import feature has undergone major improvements, resulting in better diagram generation and improved code generation with dynamic linking between cloud resources. These improvements are just the beginning of a series of changes aimed at enhancing confidence and stability for customers when importing their infrastructure.
One of the key improvements in this release is the enhancement of diagram generation for imported cloud resources. Brainboard now uses more advanced algorithms for resource positioning and connector routing, resulting in more optimal diagrams that accurately represent the relationships between resources.
One of the most noticeable changes is that the nodes are no longer all stacked on top of each other, resulting in a cleaner and more organized layout.
There have also been improvements in the containers/children relations in the design, making it easier to manage complex infrastructures.
Brainboard now incorporates dynamic linking, which means that code is generated with live links between resources, allowing for more seamless interaction between resources.
More improvements are set to be rolled out in the coming weeks & months, stay tuned...
We already support Import Azure, and now, Import AWS is available only for few Enterprise clients. Please contact the Sales team if you want to discuss your use case and migrate your infrastructure into Brainboard.
Assume role: The most commonly used method to connect a third party to your AWS account is now available in Brainboard. This is the most secure way to allow Brainboard to perform actions on your behalf within your account.
Access & secret keys: You can still use IAM user with access / secret keys.
☁️ Integration with Azure DevOps Terraform Provider
Brainboard now seamlessly integrates with the Azure DevOps Terraform Provider, enabling users to manage their Azure DevOps resources using Terraform through Brainboard’s intuitive design interface.
For unsupported TF provider, a workaround exist to use custom resources.
Now:
Direct integration with the TF provider azure_devops. Users can now design, configure, and manage Azure DevOps resources right within Brainboard.
Drag-and-drop interface for adding and configuring Azure DevOps resources such as repositories, pipelines, and service connections, directly within your infrastructure designs.
Automatic generation of Terraform configurations (.tf files) for Azure DevOps resources, managed alongside your other infrastructure code, all within Brainboard.
Visual mapping between Azure DevOps resources and other infrastructure components, enabling clearer and more efficient orchestration of multi-service environments.
In addition of the existing supported backends ( Brainboard, AWS S3 bucket, Azure blob storage & Terraform cloud backend), we are thrilled to announce a significant update to Brainboard:
This new feature empowers you to centralize and safeguard your project data, utilizing the powerful and secure infrastructure. We believe it’s a massive step forward in ensuring that Brainboard continues to be the dependable and robust tool that you trust for your projects.
💡 Why This Matters:
Centralize and fortify your project data with this integration. It's a monumental leap, reinforcing Brainboard's reputation as your trusted project tool.
Based on valuable client feedback, we are excited to introduce the latest iteration of switching a resource to data and vice-versa. In this update, we have made significant improvements, including:
Streamlined Resource Switching: We have addressed an issue where certain configurations were not being properly removed when switching a resource to data or vice versa. Now, the process is seamless, ensuring a smooth transition without any residual settings.
Enhanced Multi-Cloud Support: Our platform now features a switch button that remains accessible even if your current provider is different from the one you intend to switch to. This empowers users with multi-cloud architecture to efficiently manage their resources regardless of the provider.
Expanded Use Cases: We have incorporated feedback from diverse scenarios to cater to many more use cases effectively. This ensures our platform remains versatile and adaptable to various user requirements.
At Brainboard, we are committed to delivering a user-friendly and reliable experience. We sincerely appreciate your input, which has played a crucial role in shaping this improved version. Your continued support is invaluable to us as we strive to provide you with the best possible service.
Screenshot 2023-05-27 at 14.40.44.png66.39 KBTo address the challenges and limitations associated with outdated Terraform versions of cloud providers, we are introducing an enhanced feature that focuses on updating the Terraform versions for various cloud platforms automatically, as fast as when a new version is available. This improvement aims to alleviate confusion caused by manual updates, ensure compatibility with the latest resources and resolve issues encountered when using Terraform for new use cases.
Inheritance now supports multiple resources - While designing your cloud architecture, you can now move 2+ resources at the same time into a container.
The Brainboard migration tool supports multi-lines strings.
Export architecture as JSON - We added the export feature to allow all our users to either backup their architecture, to migrate them from one account to another one, to share them with the support when needed. You are now able to export and import any Brainboard architecture easily.
Migrating your existing cloud infrastructure from Azure to Brainboard is better day after day. With more complex use cases coming to us, we are able to improve the quality and the compliance of all cloud resources available in Terraform provider Microsoft Azure. We also improved the error messages, clarifying the reason behind it. Also, when migrating your terraform infrastructure, everything included terraform states, are successfully supported and imported in to Brainboard.
In Brainboard, this applied for all cloud providers supported (Azure, OCI, GCP, Scaleway)
You can now use variables in multi-region AWS diagram design :)
Terraform variables in Brainboard can be used to create a multi-region AWS diagram design in several ways:
Use variables to define the regions you want to deploy your infrastructure in: By using Terraform variables; you can specify which regions you want to deploy your infrastructure in and make it easy to change or add regions in the future.
Use variables to define the specific resources in each region: By using Terraform variables, you can specify the specific resources you want to deploy in each region. This allows you to create different resource configurations for different regions easily.
Use variables to define the AMI ID: By using Terraform variables, you can specify the AMI ID (Amazon Machine Image) you want to use in each region. This allows you to use different AMIs for different regions.
Use variables to define the subnets and availability zones: By using Terraform variables, you can specify the subnets and availability zones that you want to use in each region. This allows you to use different subnets and availability zones for different regions.
Use variables to define the security group: Terraform variables can specify the security group you want to use in each region. This allows you to use different security groups for different regions.
Here is an example of how you can use Terraform variables to define a variable for the region:
variable "region" {
default = "us-west-2"
}
You can use this variable in your resource definition like this:
resource "aws_instance" "example" {
ami = var.ami
instance_type = "t2.micro"
region = var.region
}
This summer, while many were enjoying their vacations, the development team at Brainboard was hard at work. They were focused on enhancing every aspect of the platform, and one of the most highly-anticipated features was the ability to import from Azure, now available to the public.
Introducing Import Azure
To celebrate this new feature, we are excited to offer you 50 free credits to import 50 Azure cloud resources and transform your Azure infrastructure into Terraform code and a live diagram. If you require additional credits, please don't hesitate to let us know. We are here to help you every step of the way.
The issue being addressed is that in the providers.tf file, the AWS GovCloud regions were not included.
The development team has fixed this issue and now the GovCloud regions are listed with their own alias in the providers.tf file. This means that users can now use the appropriate alias to specify the GovCloud region they want to work with, instead of having to manually enter the region's endpoint.
AWS GovCloud (US-West) and AWS GovCloud (US-East) are regions that are specifically designed to host sensitive data and regulated workloads in the cloud, and they are isolated to the US Government's infrastructure. These regions provide a high level of security and compliance.
Examples of the regions include:
us-gov-east-1
us-gov-west-1
In summary, the bug fix addresses an issue where in the providers.tf file, the AWS GovCloud regions were not included. The development team has fixed this issue and now the GovCloud regions are listed with their own alias, which allows users to use the appropriate alias to specify the GovCloud region they want to work with, and it's more convenient, instead of having to manually enter the region's endpoint. AWS GovCloud regions are designed to host sensitive data and regulated workloads in the cloud, and they are isolated to the US Government's infrastructure.
Allow the user to change the remote backend setting at the architecture level. ℹ️ For users/clients that want to manage multiple clients over multiple clouds and use a dedicated remote backend per client.
Terraform Reverse is a feature that allows users to automatically generate Terraform diagrams and code from their existing resources on AWS and Azure, which is now available for early access. This means that users can now convert their existing resources on these cloud providers into actionable diagrams and Terraform code, which can be used to manage and maintain their infrastructure as code.
The feature is designed to save users time and money by allowing them to quickly and easily migrate their existing resources to Terraform. It takes less than 30 minutes to migrate 2500 resources instead of 6 months, which represents a significant time savings. Additionally, the feature can save users money by reducing the cost per resource migrated, which can add up to thousands of dollars at scale.
The feature also allows users to achieve a much faster time to infrastructure as code (IaC) and automation, with up to 100x faster time. This allows users to quickly and easily automate the management of their infrastructure, which can lead to increased efficiency and reduced human error.
Overall, Terraform Reverse is designed to help users save time and money by making it easy to migrate their existing resources to Brainboard and automate the management of their infrastructure. With this feature, users can take advantage of the benefits of IaC, such as increased efficiency and reduced human error, while minimizing the time and effort required to do so.
