FAQ
Q: I'm new to the cloud - can I use Inkdrop even if I don't have much cloud experience? Do I need to know Terraform or understand infrastructure as code?
A: You don't need any cloud experience to use the product. We do our best to simplify the concepts. You do not need to know terraform and most advanced operations can be done by adapting values in the code to fix your needs.
Q: What exactly do you mean by "cloud architecture"? What are some examples of things I could draw and deploy with Inkdrop?
A: What you need to run your code. You can draw any infrastructure of your liking, our tutorial shows how to setup an API.
Q: How intuitive is the drawing interface? Is it easy to drag and drop icons to design what I want?
A: You pull resources into the editor and are handheld when configuring or connecting them. We do our best to make the experience intuitive.
Q: Once I sketch something, how does Inkdrop turn that into actual deployed infrastructure? Is there a button I click to make it happen automatically?
A: We turn your sketch into industry standard terraform code, that provisions your architecture. There is a button to deploy it in one click.
Q: Can I connect Inkdrop to my existing cloud accounts like AWS, GCP or Azure? Or do I need to create new accounts just for Inkdrop?
A: You have to bring your own AWS account, currently the only cloud provider we support.
Q: What kind of resources can I deploy with Inkdrop - VMs, containers, serverless functions? Are there any limits or restrictions?
A: Currently our coverage of serverless services is the best. We're actively working on the other areas.
Q: How much does Inkdrop cost to use? Is there a free tier available?
A: Inkdrop is currently in alpha and therefore free. We will slowly implement a resource based pricing similar to pulumi once the product is more stable. There will always be a generous free tier. Currently, we plan to offer 100 free resources.
Q: How much control do I have over the Terraform code that gets generated? Can I customize or tweak it if I want?
A: Yes, you can easily tweak the generated terraform code using our inbuilt tools. For example when creating a lambda function you most likely only care about the image running inside of it. But through our codebox just below the properties you can edit, memory, timeout and concurrency just by editing the values in the code.
Q: Does Inkdrop allow collaboration? Can my teammates and I work together on the same architecture diagrams?
A: Currently no. But we are working on robust versioning to enable live and async collaboration.
Q: Is there a way to "commit" or version my infrastructure diagrams so I can track changes over time?
A: Currently, we track every version that you provision in the cloud. As the tool matures you will have more options regarding versioning.
Q: Is Inkdrop secure to use? Does it meet any compliance standards like SOC2?
A: Inkdrop is secure, we encrypt your keys and data. We have not gone through compliance certification yet.
Q: I noticed Inkdrop only supports AWS currently. Are there plans to add support for other cloud providers like GCP or Azure?
We hope to support GCP and Azure in the future, but do not have a set timeline yet.
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