Start with a template

Overview

Using a template is one of the quickest ways to get started with Brainboard. By providing you with pre-built architecture templates, we ensure that you begin with a tried-and-true infrastructure design and save your time during the initial setup. You can always edit these templates as you need.

Starting with a template

Here are the steps you can follow to begin with templates:

1. Once you are logged into your Brainboard account, navigate to the home page by clicking Home in the left menu.

2. Then, click Create architecture button in the Recent architectures section. As an alternative, you can click the Create architecture button available at the bottom of the left menu.

As an alternative to the first two steps mentioned above, you can simply click on the Templates option in the left menu to begin with templates.

Once the menu opens, you have the following three primary paths to start your project.

• From scratch: Start with a blank canvas.

• From your infrastructure: Import existing Terraform files or sync from a cloud provider.

• From a template: Access the catalogue of pre-built designs.

1. Choose From a template to gain access to the template catalogue.

1. Next, to use the desired template, select it on the Start from a template screen by simply clicking on it.

2. Once you have selected your desired template, click the Use template option on the next screen. Here, you will be prompted with the Create architecture from template popup modal to confirm the template details.

   1. On top of this pop-up modal, you can view the total number of resources that are used in the selected template.

   2. Project: You can select the project to associate the new architecture design with.

   3. Environment: You can select the desired environment here. For example, Development, UAT, etc.

   4. Architecture name: Edit the name of the new architecture as you need.

   5. Architecture description: Provide any additional details of the architecture design.

Once you have finalised the new architecture details, you can click the Create architecture button given at the bottom right corner of the modal.

You will be navigated to the Brainboard canvas, where you can review your design and make further changes.

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Using a Template

After choosing a template, the visual diagram and associated Terraform code is loaded onto the design canvas, where you can:

1. Customize resources by manually renaming parts and changing variables to meet your unique needs.

2. Make use of Brainy: To change the template, use natural language prompts

3. Run Validation: To make sure the template's configuration is accurate inside your particular environment variables, run Terraform Validate.

If your team frequently uses the same architecture patterns, storing them as Private Templates guarantees architectural uniformity and significantly speeds up subsequent deployment cycles.

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Shared below is additional information to help you sort the template that best fits your needs.

Filtering Templates

The templates catalogue screen provides powerful filtering tools to help you find the right architecture.

Filters: If you click on this option, the Filters pane will be expanded on the right side of the screen. where you can filter designs by:

• Scope

• Terraform Providers

• Tags

Scope: Select the source library for your templates. You can choose :

1. All Scopes: Displays every template available to you across both public and organizational libraries.

2. Public: Access a collection of high-quality architecture patterns provided by Brainboard that cover common cloud deployment scenarios.

3. Organization: Access your company’s internal library of private infrastructure patterns tailored specifically for your team.

Terraform Providers: To view templates unique to that environment, choose your desired cloud provider(AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.).

Tags: Using tags, you can filter the specific infrastructure components like Networking, Database, Compute, orServerless, etc.

You can convert any architecture you have designed into a Private Template. This allows you to build a reusable collection of authorized infrastructure patterns, ensuring architectural uniformity and significantly accelerating future deployment cycles.

Search bar: To locate particular use cases, such as landing zone, kubernetes, security, you can utilize the search bar.

1. To make your view more user-friendly when selecting the desired filter, you can sort the filtered results by clicking the Name dropdown. Options include sorting by

• Name (ascending/descending)

• Cloud provider(ascending/descending)

• date the template was last updated(ascending/descending)