Infrastructure as Code: Let's understand the basics.

?Infrastructure as Code (IaC) refers to a high-level descriptive coding language commonly used to automate IT infrastructure configurations and deployments. IaC is mainly used in managing and provisioning IT infrastructure through machine-readable definition files instead of various physical configuration and interactive tools (RahmanMahdavi-Hezaveh, & Williams, 2019).??

How?to apply IaC to your organization.

Infrastructure as Code functions by following various basic and simple steps as demonstrated in the schematic diagram below;?

1. ?Developers start by writing infrastructure code specifications using a configuration language.
2. The files obtained are then sent to the master server, API management, and Code repository.
3. The platform follows all the necessary steps in creating and configuring computer resources and IT infrastructures.

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Benefits of Implementing Infrastructure as Code

1. Increases production speed:??Infrastructure as Code ( IaC) automation helps enhance the speed and provisioning of infrastructure development, testing, and the production process(RahmanMahdavi-Hezaveh, & Williams, 2019).?This is because IaC helps in codifying and documenting everything, and it can also automate the legacy IT infrastructure, which otherwise might lengthy and time-consuming process.
2. Infrastructure as Code improves the consistency of the configuration process.?The IaC helps prevent various configuration drifts when changes and updates are made in the IT environments. This is great for scalability and agility in IT infrastructures.
3. IaC promotes efficiency in the development of IT infrastructure. Through simplification provisioning and promoting infrastructure consistency, the IaC aids in accelerating every phase of the software application and delivery lifecycle.
4. ?Reduces costs and improves ROI: IaC reduces the overall costs, effort, and hardware skills needed in provisioning and scaling up IT infrastructure. The Infrastructure as Code allows a business organization to take maximum advantage of cloud computing cost-based consumption structure(RahmanMahdavi-Hezaveh, & Williams, 2019).
5. Documentation: Infrastructure as Code helps in documenting the actual state of IT infrastructure.
6. Source control. The IaC helps in maintaining accountability and transparency of IT infrastructure environments.
7. Reusability. The infrastructure as code makes it possible to develop usable modules, such as replicating development and production IT environments.

Common IaC tools

?While there are several tools adopted?in the Infrastructure as Code,?the most commonly used include;

1. Ansible tool:??This is a critical open-source tool that Red Hat developed to help business organizations in designing, automating, provisioning, and managing configurations and applications (Guerriero et al., 2019). The Ansible tool is commonly used in automating the provisioning of Docker containers and Kubernetes deployments.
2. Terraform:?This is a provisioning and orchestration infrastructure tool which allows engineers and software developers to automate all the provisioning aspects of cloud-based and on-premises infrastructure.
3. AWS cloud formation tools.?This IaC tool is integrated into the AWS cloud platform to provide users with more straightforward and effective ways of provisioning, automating, and managing AWS and other third–party resources using IaC (Guerriero et al., 2019).
4. Azure ARM Templates.?This IaC tool allows organizations to deploy, maintain, and track their resources collectively rather than individually.

Conclusion

In conclusion, IaC is an IT practice used in codifying and managing the underlying IT infrastructure of business organizations. The IaC helps business organizations automate their IT infrastructure, thus eliminating the need for technology professionals to manage their servers, database, storage systems, software applications, and operating systems manually. ?

References

Rahman, A., Mahdavi-Hezaveh, R., & Williams, L. (2019). A systematic mapping study of infrastructure as code research.?Information and Software Technology,?108, 65-77.

Guerriero, M., Garriga, M., Tamburri, D. A., & Palomba, F. (2019, September). Adoption, support, and challenges of infrastructure-as-code: Insights from the industry. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)?(pp. 580-589). IEEE.