Managing Infrastructure with Code

Infrastructure as Code
IaC Terraform DevOps Automation

Managing Infrastructure with Code

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) represents one of the most significant shifts in how we manage IT infrastructure. By treating infrastructure like software, we can achieve unprecedented levels of consistency, reliability, and scalability.

What is Infrastructure as Code?

Infrastructure as Code is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools.

Key Benefits

Consistency

  • Eliminates configuration drift
  • Ensures identical environments across development, staging, and production
  • Reduces “it works on my machine” problems

Version Control

  • Infrastructure changes are tracked in version control
  • Easy rollbacks when issues occur
  • Full audit trail of who changed what and when

Automation

  • Automated provisioning reduces manual errors
  • Faster deployment of new environments
  • Self-documenting infrastructure

Terraform

  • Provider Agnostic: Works with AWS, Azure, GCP, and more
  • Declarative Syntax: Describe what you want, not how to get there
  • State Management: Tracks current infrastructure state

AWS CloudFormation

  • Native AWS Integration: Deep integration with AWS services
  • Template-based: JSON/YAML templates define resources
  • Stack Management: Organize related resources together

Pulumi

  • Real Programming Languages: Use TypeScript, Python, Go, C#
  • Cloud Native: Built for modern cloud architectures
  • Policy as Code: Enforce compliance automatically

Let’s explore how to get started with Terraform…