Infrastructure as Code

More and more teams are relying on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to automate infrastructure processes. The advantages: the infrastructure is consistent, scalable and security is improved. Changes are traceable and can be implemented and checked more efficiently.

This article highlights the advantages of IaC and briefly introduces the most important tools for implementing IaC. Do you need a deep dive? At the end of the article, you can download our free white paper on the topic.

Infrastructure as Code is an approach to infrastructure automation based on software development practices. All infrastructure components should be defined as code and ideally also tested. In practice, this means that you describe your infrastructure either in a programming language or using configurations in JSON or YAML format. This then results in instructions that make modifications to an environment definition and the version of the configuration model. 

Once this environment has been set up, adjustments are only made at the source and no longer at the endpoint. The configuration is usually stored in a version management system such as Git. As a result, infrastructure can be deployed in a consistent, repeatable and automated way.

The benefits of Infrastructure as Code lie mainly in improving consistency, security and avoiding errors when building good application infrastructure. It also speeds up processes, saving time and money. For this reason, we believe that Infrastructure as Code should be a standard in the professional operation of web applications. 

• Cost and time efficiency
  Complex infrastructures can be automatically deployed and managed in just a few commands.
• Consistency and repeatability
  Defining the infrastructure as code ensures that environments are consistent and reduces the risk of human error.
• Scalability
  With IaC, resources can be easily added or removed. This makes it possible to react to changing requirements.
• Versioning
  Every change to the infrastructure is versioned, enabling easy traceability and rollbacks.
• Security and compliance
  IaC offers a high level of standardization, ensuring that all resources are deployed according to the same security guidelines.

Here we briefly summarize which tools play an important role in IaC. You can find more information and a deep dive into Terraform in our free white paper. We differentiate between tools that are particularly suitable for infrastructure provisioning and tools that can be used to automate and simplify the configuration and management of servers. Most IaC tools are now very powerful in terms of their range of functions. Nevertheless, some are more suitable for provisioning and others for configuring the infrastructure. 

• Terraform
  Open source tool from HashiCorp that makes it possible to define and provision resources in various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
• AWS CloudFormation
  AWS CloudFormation is a service from Amazon Web Services and also enables Infrastructure-as-Code provisioning
• Pulumi
  Pulumi is still a very young infrastructure-as-code tool that offers the same functions as Terraform, but allows users to formulate their deployment logic in common programming languages such as Go, TypeScript, Python or .NET instead of specific configuration languages such as YAML or HCL.

• Chef
  Chef allows users to define their infrastructure in the form of "recipes" and "cookbooks" that describe the desired states of the systems. A typical area of application for Chef could be the automation of the configuration of web servers, databases or the installation of software packages.
• Puppet
  Puppet is often used in large, complex environments where it ensures consistent and repeatable server configuration.
• Ansible
  Ansible makes it possible to define and manage infrastructure using simple YAML files, so-called playbooks. These playbooks describe the desired states of the systems and the steps required to achieve these states.

Infrastructure as Code is revolutionizing the way companies manage and operate their IT infrastructure. By automating deployment and using code to manage infrastructures, organizations can achieve unprecedented efficiency, speed and scalability. IaC enables infrastructure changes to be made quickly and consistently, resulting in improved uptime and faster time to market.

The benefits of IaC are clear: cost reduction, risk minimization due to human error and a significant acceleration of development cycles. Use the possibilities of Infrastructure as Code to take your IT infrastructure to the next level.