When Ticketmaster embraced DevOps, the company implemented key technologies that enabled them to re-architect their entire web platform and workflow. Utilizing Fastly with Terraform enabled Ticketmaster to use Fastly as more than a CDN, but as a core component of their new web platform. Paris will elaborate on the main Fastly features that Ticketmaster currently leverages, and how they manage a large amount of different Fastly services through the use of Terraform, and specifically, the Fastly Terraform Provider.

1. Tackling Fastly Terraform @
Ticketmaster
Paris Apostolopoulos
Lead Software Engineer
International Platform Team
Ticketmaster, UK
+ +
Terrafor
m
Fastl
y
Ticketmaster =

2. About me
● @javapapo
● about.me/javapapo
● www.linkedin.com/in/javaneze/
● javapapo@mac.com
● paris.apostolopoulos@ticketmaster.co.uk

3. My first reaction when I heard about Fastly
for the first time...some time ago

4. After a year using Fastly on a public facing
website

5. About the team

6. Fastly - more than a CDN to us
● Edge Cache
● Intelligent Router / Cluster load
balancing / event based routing
● Image optimization
● Our strongest ally during onsales!
● ~95% cache coverage

7. Fastly - our strongest ally
● We must be able to go from a few
req/sec to 1000x req/sec instantly.
● We need to be able to do that at any
day, any give time, live events never
stop!
● Netflix style of traffic BUT -
remember we sell a finite resource
(tickets) not infinite copies of the
same video ;)

8. Challenge: Multiple Services / Domains
● We have a large number Fastly Services (domains)
● Different web apps / managed by different teams
● Pre-prod and beta environments
● Production Services

9. Challenge: Multiple Services / Domains

10. Challenge: How do you effectively manage
so many domains?
● Limit access to services to certain teams
● At the same time you want to encourage your dev team
to embrace Fastly
● The closer the devops team is to Fastly the more the
end product will benefit
● How do you implement change control over your multi-
domain fastly configuration?

11. The Fastly dashboard is your friend...initially
● We have seen that most of the teams start interacting
directly with the Fastly dashboard
● This is to be expected and actually encouraged,
especially when you start adding Fastly to your solution
● Fastly’s built-in versioning helps to keep track of who is
doing what & revert mistakes ;)

12. The Fastly dashboard is your friend...initially

13. And then you start making use of more
advanced features - VCL
● One of the most powerful features of Fastly is the ability
to ‘code’ your edge cache
● When you enter the ‘VCL’ world you become a power
user and have total control

14. And then you start making use of more
advanced features - more VCL , edge
dictionaries, shielding

15. At some point updating your Fastly
configuration through the dashboard
becomes a problem
● Too many different changes happening at the same
time
● VCL code becomes bigger and bigger, change on logic
or even introducing bugs!
● Multiple people, editing the configuration at the same
time, too many interim config versions

16. At some point maintaining your Fastly
configuration through the dashboard
becomes a problem

17. Fastly Terraform Provider to the rescue!

18. Step 0: Basic idea
● Use the Fastly Terraform provider and migrate all the
configs and the update process to a Terraform
automated pipeline
● Team members should update on git the Terraform
config for each domain /service and then kick a build
pipeline
● https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/fastly/index.html

19. Step 0 : Basic Idea - Flow

20. Step 1: Setup the CI/CD pipeline - Gitlab
Gitlab-ci.yml
.template: &terraform
image: xxxxx/terraform
tags:
- tm-prod cicd build
tickectmasterUk-plan:
<<: *terraform
stage: plan
only:
- master
script:
- |
cd ticketmaster-uk
terraform init;terraform plan
tickectmasterUk-apply:
<<: *terraform
stage: apply
when: manual
only:
- master
script:
- |
cd ticketmaster-uk
terraform init;terraform apply
The only thing you need to pass to the `terraform` worker is your
API key `FASTLY_KEY` so that it can access Fastly’s public
API, and depending on your terraform any keys for storing
securing the `tfstate.files`!

21. Step 1: Setup the CI/CD pipeline

22. Step 2: Setup the terraform project structure
Terraform files-
all your config is
here. Based on
the fastly
provider
All your VCL -
you can have
multiple files
The gitlab-ci
pipeline from
the previous
step

23. Step 3: Terraform your fastly dashboard

24. Step 3: Terraform your fastly dashboard
clicks
● For every section on the Fastly
dashboard config, there is a
Terraform resource to be used
● https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/fastly/r/service_v1.ht
ml

25. Step 3: If you are unsure don't forget you
already have the generated VCL from Fastly
- use it as reference!

26. Step 4: Perform changes through git,
commit and trigger the pipeline!

27. Done! It's easier than you think!
● Estimated time for migrating any domain is within hours to max 1 day
● Once you migrate one, you have the pipeline for all the others
● Bonus feature - Fastly continues to version your configs internally +
you can mix manual updates and subsequent Terraform runs
● The Fastly Terraform provider is expected to improve over time!
● https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-fastly

28. What you gain
● Changes on your config are versioned on git + fastly
● You can do M.R / P.R and check the quality of the changes
● The terraform pipeline ensures the order of executions
● Your VCL code is properly versioned and you can break it to smaller
files, share it among other services
● One pipeline can eventually update multiple related services
● One pipeline per ‘application’ multiple services (prod/beta/dev)
○ Sharing common resources (tf, vcl)

29. How it worked for us
● Our Fastly update process is more transparent than ever and is fully
automated.
● This means, the chance of making a mistake, is actually very low.
● We treat our Fastly config as part of our code base, developers love
automation and version control systems, so this process is very familiar
and easily understood by newcomers
● We actually followed the same principle as with our infrastructure,
maintaining large corporate AWS accounts using only the web console is
not sustainable. The same applies for Fastly.

30. Thank you - Happy Terraforming your Fastly
configs!