Breaking Up with HCL: Writing Cloud Infrastructure with Python and Pulumi

[ghanatava]

Title

Breaking Up with HCL: Writing Cloud Infrastructure with Python and Pulumi

Describe your Talk

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has traditionally been dominated by DSLs like Terraform (HCL) and configuration-heavy YAML setups. While powerful, these tools often lack the flexibility and developer ergonomics offered by general-purpose programming languages.

What if you could write and manage infrastructure using Python?

This talk introduces Pulumi, a modern Infrastructure as Code tool that lets you define, provision, and manage cloud resources using familiar Python code. We'll explore how this approach allows developers and DevOps engineers to use the full power of the Python ecosystem—loops, functions, modules—to build reusable and dynamic infrastructure patterns.

We’ll cover:

Why someone might want an alternative to Terraform

How Pulumi’s Python SDK works under the hood

Demonstrate writing IaC with Python

Comparisons between Pulumi and Terraform from a DevOps perspective

Pre-requisites & reading material

Basic understanding of cloud concepts (e.g., virtual machines, containers, networks)

Familiarity with Python syntax

Optional: Some Terraform experience for comparison

Resources

Pulumi Documentation

Time required for the talk

25mins

Link to slides/demos

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGp91w7_i4/LfHCzuzIiUKuP8KATiMjEQ/edit?utm_content=DAGp91w7_i4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

About you

I am a DevOps engineer with 1.2 years of experience. I specialise with cloud infrastructure, container orchestration and CI/CD workflows. I have worked with enterprise infrastructure at scale for GenAI workloads and enterprise applications.
I frequently post about DevOps on my Linkedin
I used to attend PyDelhi in my freshman year, would like to return this time as a speaker.

Availability

21/06/2025

Any comments

No response

[agriyakhetarpal]

Hi @ghanatava, thanks for proposing a talk! We've been reviewing the talks in the pipeline for the June edition, and I've come around to review this talk today. I think the general idea of explaining Python-focused IaC tooling sounds good to me, and it's a useful topic for all, so this is a +1 from my end. Would it be possible for you to share your slides with us at your convenience? Draft slides would be completely alright. Re: Terraform knowledge as a prerequisite: please note that not all members in our audience may be familiar with using Terraform or DevOps-centric concepts. Would it be possible to include a brief section on Terraform as well, or tailor your presentation to accommodate this prerequisite, as you've mentioned that it is optional?

[ghanatava]

Hi @agriyakhetarpal I will share the slides soon, the terraform part is not required as Pulumi is quite different. For a comparative description I plan to show examples written in both Terraform and Pulumi Python SDK. I plan to keep the talk beginner friendly even if the audience is unfamiliar it won't be an issue as I will cover the fundamentals of Infrastructure as Code.

[agriyakhetarpal]

Perfect, thanks!

The venue for the talk is the essentia.dev office in Sector 62, Noida. This edition of the meetup is a collaborative one with the ILUG-D community. We can schedule your presentation a little closer to the date, and we'll keep you posted about the rest of the details in this thread.

[ghanatava]

Here are the draft slides @agriyakhetarpal
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGp91w7_i4/LfHCzuzIiUKuP8KATiMjEQ/edit?utm_content=DAGp91w7_i4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

[agriyakhetarpal]

I think this presentation looks great already. I have a few points to offer as feedback:

• slides 3, 7, and 8: would it be possible to reduce the text here ever so slightly? I feel that these slides are too text-heavy; the audience may struggle to follow along with your narration.
• slides 6 and 9: we have noticed across our previous meetups that code snippets in dark mode (and similarly for dark backgrounds behind lighter shades of text) bring forward negative accessibility implications. Could you please switch them to a lighter shade/theme, and increase the font size while you're at it?

I'll mark your talk as "scheduled" for now, and ask other volunteers to pitch in with their reviews when they have time to do so. Please let us know if you require any additional arrangements to accommodate you, or if you have a preferred time slot.

Thanks for sharing!