Infrastructure as Code

Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the process of managing and provisioning computer data centers through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. Both physical equipment such as bare-metal servers as well as virtual machines and associated configuration resources are called "infrastructure", although they have nothing to do with actual infrastructure. The definitions may be in a version control system. It can use either scripts or declarative definitions, rather than manual processes, but the term is more often used to promote declarative approaches.

Infrastructure as code approaches are promoted for cloud computing, which is sometimes marketed as infrastructure as a service (IaaS). IaC supports IaaS, but should not be confused with it.

IaC grew as a response to the difficulty posed from two pieces of disruptive technology – utility computing and second-generation web frameworks. This brought about widespread scaling problems for many enterprises that were previously only witnessed by huge companies. In 2006 specifically, new challenges were brought to the forefront that shook the technology industry; the launch of Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud and the 1.0 version of Ruby on Rails just months before. With new tools emerging to handle this ever growing field, the idea of Infrastructure as Code was born. The thought of modelling infrastructure with code, and then having the ability to design, implement, and deploy applications infrastructure with known software best practices appealed to software developers and IT infrastructure administrators. The ability to treat it like code and use the same tools as any other software project would allow developers to rapidly deploy applications.

The value of Infrastructure as Code can be broken down into three, measurable categories: Cost (reduction), Speed (faster execution) and Risk (remove errors and security violations). Cost reduction aims at helping not only the enterprise financially but also in terms of people and effort, meaning that by removing the manual component, people are able to refocus their efforts towards other enterprise tasks. Infrastructure automation enables speed through faster execution when configuring your infrastructure and aims at providing visibility to help other teams across the enterprise work quickly and more efficiently. Automation removes the risk associated with human error, like manual misconfiguration; removing this can decrease downtime and increase reliability. These outcomes and attributes help the enterprise move towards implementing a culture of DevOps, the combined working of Development and Operations.

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Wikipedia