🚀 CoderCo Azure Starter

🌍 Overview

Welcome to the CoderCo Azure Terraform Starter! This technical assessment is designed to evaluate your ability to deploy and manage infrastructure on Microsoft Azure using Terraform. The primary focus is on Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS), high availability, and best practices.

The provided Terraform configuration contains multiple errors and incomplete features. Your task is to debug, improve, and extend the solution following Terraform best practices.

No direct SSH or RDP access is required, but you can enable access for troubleshooting if necessary. Feel free to tackle the tasks in any order, and remember, you are not expected to complete all tasks within the given time.

🛠 Pre-Requisites

Ensure you have the following installed:

• ✅ Azure CLI (authenticated to your Azure subscription)
• ✅ Terraform (latest stable version)
• ✅ jq (for JSON parsing in CLI)

📌 Tasks

Debug & Fix the Configuration

• The supplied Terraform code contains multiple syntax, provider, and logical errors.
• Fix the errors to ensure terraform plan runs successfully.
• Ensure Terraform state management is configured properly (use remote backend where applicable).

🚀 Ensure Successful Deployment

• The current configuration fails during apply. Identify and fix the issues.
• Ensure the application deployed to the VM scale set is accessible via HTTP on port 80.
• Test by retrieving the public IP and verifying a response like:

"Hello! Your CoderCo Tech Test VM is working!"

📈 Scale & High Availability Enhancements

• Update the Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS) to run 3 instances.
• Distribute instances across multiple Availability Zones for high availability.
• Ensure automatic scaling is configured correctly.

🔒 Networking & Security Best Practices

• Upgrade to an Azure Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic across VMSS nodes.
• Ensure the infrastructure follows principle of least privilege by restricting unnecessary security group rules.
• Configure network security groups (NSGs) to allow only port 80 for HTTP traffic.
• Ensure data encryption at rest for any storage resources.

🐧 Make the Solution Linux-Compatible

• The current solution is Windows-based. Modify it to deploy Linux-based VMs instead.
• Ensure the application starts and serves traffic correctly on Linux.
• Use cloud-init or Terraform provisioners to configure the VM on boot.

🏆 Enforce Terraform Best Practices

• Remove any Terraform warnings and deprecations.
• Refactor the solution to follow the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle using:
• Modules for reusable components.
• Variables for configurable parameters.
• Outputs to expose useful information.
• Locals to simplify expressions.
• Implement Terraform linting to ensure code quality.
• Use Terraform locking and version pinning to prevent unintended updates.

⭐ Extra Credit

• Implement logging and monitoring using Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.
• Store Terraform state in an Azure Storage Account with state locking.
• Automate Terraform deployments using CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).

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📩 Submission Guidelines

• Provide a GitHub repository with your Terraform code and documentation.
• Include a README.md with instructions on how to apply the Terraform configuration.
• Document any assumptions, limitations, or trade-offs you made.
• If using modules, structure your code following a clean, modular approach.

All the best! 🚀

Version Details

Version: 1.0