HashiConf shindig oddly reluctant to mention impending IBM acquisition
HashiCorp’s annual HashiConf shindig wrapped up in Boston with a Big Blue elephant in the room and a hissed instruction: „Don’t mention IBM!“
That the conference was in the unspoken shadow of the impending IBM acquisition was a shame since the company unveiled some useful, if not earth-shattering, updates to its product line, including a focus on Security and Infrastructure Lifecycle Management.
As Reg readers know, HashiCorp is all about tools to provision, manage, and secure cloud infrastructure. Its move to the Business Source License in 2023 caused consternation in the open source world and the rise to prominence of an open source Terraform rival, OpenTofu. One of its founders, Mitchell Hashimoto (the Hashi in HashiCorp), announced plans – not connected with the license change – to depart at the end of the same year. In April 2024, it was confirmed that IBM would buy the company for a cool $6.4 billion.
The two biggest announcements on the Infrastructure side were the move of Terraform Stacks (referred to by CTO Armon Dadgar as „Terraform 2.0“) into public beta and the general availability of HCP Waypoint.
Terraform Stacks was previewed last year and the team has since made some tweaks in terms of scalability and functionality. The Register spoke with HashiCorp’s VP of Marketing, Meghan Liese, who confirmed Stacks‘ place in the brave new world into which Terraform is marching. There are no plans to ditch the existing Workspaces technology, however, despite Stacks‘ role as a way to organize infrastructure and manage life cycles.
