Infrastructure as Code#

Infrastructure as Code is a concept where codified definitions of infrastructure as used to execute changes against cloud or SaaS targets.

The main clouds (AWs, Azure, GCP etc) often have their own proprietary IaC that is used to manage resources in a given tenancy.

Benefits of IaC#

The immediate benefit of IaC is in the nature of codifying the infrastructure definitions. Once a system has been described in code files then is can be treated like code, that is to say that it can be controlled in a version control system, versioned, verified, tested etc.

Coupled with a strong set of CICD capabilities then IaC can be used to progressively change a system in a defined versioned way, using pipelines to put changes further in lower environments before making it to production.

Types of IaC#

Terraform#

Terraform is the tool of choice for platform engineering and covers most of our use cases here at the university.