Project Bicep: Microsoft muscles in on Terraform's territory to manage Azure resources with code

Microsoft's Project Bicep, first demoed at the Ignite event last year and still described as "experimental", lets users define a set of Azure resources in code by using a domain-specific language. On Microsoft's cloud, a Resource Group is a collection of Azure services and the Azure Resource Manager is a management service …

[Dunstan Vavasour]

Terraform and the PHB

Which all begs the question, why would you use this rather than just writing Terraform?

And I suspect the answer is that the PHB has heard of Microsoft and hasn't heard of Hashicorp. We all know the type, claim they're "risk averse" as an excuse for running hardware and software that's near or past its end of support. Believe that nobody got fired for buying Microsoft (or IBM). When the head of development comes to him for budget, he'll go over the proposal and believe he's adding value by insisting they use Bicep rather than Terraform.

At the same time there will be analyst charts showing a tick in a box for AWS with CloudFormation and a tentative tick in the same box for Bicep. The fact that most developers don't use either doesn't stop it being a "feature gap" for Azure.

[oldmanelections]

check out CloudMaker

We have been using Cloudmaker for Azure deployments, it graphical, and does not require you to learn another Language. Drop the item into your screen, and fill in the properties, works well, and once you get used to it, error correction is easy. You get version control. and will be available for AWS. It has its teething problems, but worth the effort, and you can get the ARM templates to download if you want them.

[3Sails]

No idempotency, no party.

[richardcox13]

Bicep generates ARM templates, and those templates are idempotent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you suppose they think that "bicep" is a word?