What is Infrastructure as Code?
Feeling the burden of managing a sprawling, 100+ server farm, scaling infrastructure up and down multiple times per day or even hours? Enter Infrastructure as Code, your secret weapon for automating infrastructure deployment and management.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is about managing your infrastructure through automated scripts. It allows for the full automation of deployment and configuration and is especially useful when integrated with CI/CD.
This part of DevOps technology alone can save you a lot of time and money that would be better spent on more important tasks. With IaC, various actions can be automated, including non-obvious ones such as security updates, deployments, installations, and other mundane tasks. Infrastructure as Code also allows you to automate the creation of clusters, nodes, buckets, domains, and more, streamlining your operations and increasing efficiency.
Consider this scenario: you need to set up a production server with several configuration templates, including:
- Automatic deployment
- Disk mounting
- Domain configuration
- Database installation
- Project installation
- Network and firewall settings
Sure, you could set all this up manually every day in a couple of hours. But with Terraform (an open-source Infrastructure as Code software tool), you can streamline the process by writing code once and running it with a single command, taking as little as 2–5 minutes a day.
Moreover, automation provides a safety net for quickly backing up or recovering applications, which is especially critical for companies that require high infrastructure availability.
However, it's important to recognize that while IaC offers significant benefits, it should be handled with care and expertise. The automation within the IaC relies on accessing critical data, e.g., cloud credentials and domain settings, to effectively configure and manage the infrastructure as specified in the code.
In the hands of a novice, it's a double-edged sword that can inadvertently cause disruptions like function changes, unexpected reboots, or system failures. Therefore, we strongly recommend you exercise the utmost care and diligence when implementing IaC in production environments!
To ensure the safe and effective use of Infrastructure as Code, consider partnering with our seasoned DevOps team. With extensive experience in Opigno and Drupal projects and a proven track record of maintaining infrastructure security and stability, we're committed to enhancing your overall security, infrastructure, and maintainability. If this sounds interesting to you, explore our upcoming DevOps/DevSecOps services and reach out for a personalized rundown.
