Historically, manual intervention was the only way of managing computer infrastructure. Servers had to be mounted on racks, operating systems had to installed, and networks had to be connected and configured. At that time, this wasn’t a problem since development cycles were long and infrastructure changes were not frequent.
But in today’s world the businesses expect agility on all fronts to meet the dynamic customer needs.
With the rise of DevOps, Virtualization, Cloud and Agile practices, the software development cycles were shortened. As a result, there was a demand for better infrastructure management techniques. Organizations could no longer afford to wait for hours or days for servers to be deployed.
Infrastructure as Code is one way of raising the standard of infrastructure management and time to deployment. By using a combination of tools, languages, protocols, and processes, IaC can safely create and configure infrastructure elements in seconds.
What is Infrastructure as Code?
Infrastructure as Code, or IaC, is a method of writing and deploying machine-readable definition files that generate service components, thereby supporting the delivery of business systems and IT-enabled processes. IaC helps IT operations teams manage and provision IT infrastructure automatically through code without relying on manual processes. IaC is often described as “programmable infrastructure”.
IaC can be applied to the entire IT landscape but it is especially critical for cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), and DevOps. IaC is the foundation on which the entire DevOps is built. DevOps requires agile work processes and automated workflows which can only be achieved through the assurance of readily available IT Infrastructure – which is needed to run and test the developed code. This can only happen within an automated workflow.
How Infrastructure as Code Works
At a high level IaC can be explained in 3 main steps as shown below.
- Developers write the infrastructure specification in a domain-specific language.
- The resulting files are sent to a master server, a management API, or a code repository.
- The platform takes all the necessary steps to create and configure the computer resources.
Types of Infrastructure as Code
- Scripting: Writing scripts is the most direct approach to IaC. Scripts are best for executing simple, short, or one-off tasks.
- Configuration Management Tools: These are specialized tools designed to manage software. They are usually used for installing and configuring servers. Ex: Chef, Puppet, and Ansible.
- Provisioning Tools: Provisioning tools focus on creating infrastructure. Using these types of tools, developers can define exact infrastructure components. Ex: Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, and OpenStack Heat.
- Containers and Templating Tools: These tools generate templates pre-loaded with all the libraries and components required to run an application. Containerized workloads are easy to distribute and have much lower overhead than running a full-size server. Examples are Docker, rkt, Vagrant, and Packer.
Some of the frequently used IaC Tools
- AWS CloudFormation
- Azure Resource Manager
- Google Cloud Deployment Manager
- HashiCorp Terraform
- RedHat Ansible
- Docker
- Puppet/Chef
Use Cases of IaC:
- Software Development:
If the development environment is uniform across the SDLC, the chances of bugs arising are much lower. Also, the deployment and configuration can be done faster as building, testing, staging and production deployments are mostly repeatable, predictable and error-free.
- Cloud Infrastructure Management:
In the case of cloud infrastructure management using IaC, multiple scenarios emerge, where provisioning and configuring the system components with tools like Terraform and Kubernetes helps save time, money and effort. All kinds of tasks, from database backups to new feature releases can be done faster and better.
- Cloud Monitoring:
The usefulness of IaC can also be utilized in cloud monitoring, logging and alerting tools which run in different environments. Solutions like ELK stack, FluentD, SumoLogic, Datadog, Prometheus + Grafana, etc. can be quickly provisioned and configured for the project using IaC.
Benefits of Infrastructure as Code
- Faster time to production/market
- Improved consistency
- Agility, more efficient development
- Protection against churn
- Lower costs and improved ROI
- Better Documentation
- Increased transparency and accountability
Conclusion:
IaC is an essential part of DevOps transformation, helping the software development and infrastructure management teams work in closely and provide predictable, repeatable and reliable software delivery services. IaC can simplify and accelerate your infrastructure provisioning process, help you avoid mistakes, keep your environments consistent, and save your company a lot of time and money.
If IaC isn’t something you’re already doing, maybe it’s time to start!
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