Software applications today have become increasingly complex. This has made infrastructure management and provisioning extremely difficult. Relying on manual processes to make configuration changes is time-consuming and extremely prone to error. This has led to the widespread popularity of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) which automates the provisioning and management of infrastructure.
Read on as we demystify IaC and showcase how it helps streamline automation for modern IT infrastructure.
What Is Infrastructure as Code?
Atlassian defines Infrastructure as Code as “an IT infrastructure management process that applies best practices from DevOps software development to the management of cloud infrastructure resources.” As a form of configuration management, IaC allows for on-demand provisioning and requisitioning of infrastructure through code instead of manual processes.
Since IaC creates configuration files with necessary infrastructure specifications, it makes it easier to alter and deliver configurations. It focuses on continuous documentation of changes as well as efficient version control, thus minimizing ad-hoc changes and workarounds.
How Does IaC Help Automate Modern IT Infrastructure?
Infrastructure as Code plays a huge role in automating modern IT infrastructure and empowering development teams to accelerate software delivery. Here’s how IaC does it:
· Eliminates Manual Configuration
Automating infrastructure provisioning with IaC means developers can get rid of manual tasks to provision and manage servers, operating systems, storage, and any other infrastructure components. Such automation enhances the speed of deployment every time they develop or deploy an application.
· Streamlines Infrastructure Provisioning
The complexity of today’s software products has made infrastructure provisioning a critical aspect of CI/CD. Thankfully, IaC streamlines infrastructure provisioning by allowing new application features to be released to production frequently. Having a ready template to follow for provisioning reduces the time and effort it takes to make any configuration changes to the underlying infrastructure.
· Enforces Consistency
As more and more applications get launched, increasingly more infrastructure needs to be spun up, scaled, and taken down. IaC makes it easy to manage the scale of today’s infrastructure and enforces much-needed consistency in how infra is provisioned and managed. By making releases robust, repeatable, and automated, IaC minimizes manual administration and standardizes release pipelines.
· Establishes Stable Test Environments
With the adoption of the cloud, the number of infrastructure components to be managed has also grown exponentially. Infrastructure as Code establishes a stable test environment for teams to test and verify the various infrastructure components. By allowing teams to run necessary tests in production-like environments early in the development cycle, IaC helps provision multiple test environments reliably and on demand.
· Enables Seamless Scalability
As organizations bring hundreds of applications and related changes into the market, they need to make sure the underlying infrastructure scales in response to user demand. Through automation, Infrastructure as Code makes this process of configuration management a cakewalk and enables seamless scalability. Such automation also makes it possible for organizations to respond to new business opportunities and competitive threats with speed and precision.
· Minimizes Costs
Manual approaches to infrastructure provisioning and management are extremely costly and error-prone. IaC, on the other hand, offers a great way for teams to minimize and control costs. It eliminates the need to physically set up, install, configure, and manage the associated system hardware. This dramatically reduces the time, effort, and cost of provisioning and scaling infrastructure while also allowing developers to spend more time driving innovation.
· Improves Deployment Speed
As elucidated above, Infrastructure as Code simplifies the provisioning of complex infra components, accelerating deployment speed. It allows developers to quickly provision sandboxes, CI/CD, and test environments and move code from development into production quickly and efficiently.
What Are the Latest Trends in IaC?
As IaC becomes an indispensable part of infrastructure provisioning and management, teams must stay a step ahead of the latest developments and innovations. Let’s look at the latest IaC trends:
- As software applications undergo daily changes, the policy-as-code solutions will help keep environments consistent. Policy-as-code will enable teams to standardize environments and create pipelines that are stable and scalable.
- With cybersecurity incidents increasing, there will be a continued focus on improving the security of IaC-based environments. Modern security innovations will make it possible for teams to scan, monitor, and remediate configuration issues across different environments.
- The coming years will also see development teams making compliance management an integral part of IaC. Automation of compliance processes via audits and remediation will enhance visibility and control while helping teams maintain and enforce continuous compliance.
Ride the IaC Wave with enreap
Increasing competition, fluctuating market trends, and evolving customer expectations are putting immense pressure on organizations. Building products that cater to current and future needs quickly and seamlessly is the need of the hour. However, as enterprises build and deploy applications at scale, they realize the drawbacks of manual infrastructure provisioning.
Infrastructure as Code automates the complex task of infrastructure provisioning and management, allowing teams to quickly develop, deploy, and deliver applications – with greater speed, less risk, and at reduced costs. With the global infrastructure as code (IaC) market expected to grow at a CAGR of 24% to 26% between 2023 and 2028, it’s time to ride on the IaC wave!
If you want to achieve operational delivery excellence, learn how enreap’s DevOps Consulting Services team can help you get the most out of IaC in today’s fast-paced environment.
