Six Reasons to Consider Infrastructure as Code for Your Organization

As more businesses migrate to Azure and integrate DevOps methodologies into their IT strategies, effective management of cloud infrastructure becomes increasingly important. Infrastructure as Code This is a popular approach in this space because it paves the way for technical leaders to streamline complex IT environments and address security, governance, and compliance at a fundamental level.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) refers to building and managing IT infrastructure through code rather than manual processes. “IaC is a DevOps practice that involves managing your IT infrastructure, like networks and virtual machines, in the same way you manage code,” says Satish Sunker, cloud solutions architect at BUI. “It’s taking the principles you would normally apply to code, like version control, testing, and deployment, and applying them to infrastructure. It’s essentially leveraging code to configure and control your infrastructure deployments.”

How does IaC work? IaC involves writing templates or scripts that define the configuration of your infrastructure, including servers, load balancers, and databases. Microsoft offers a range of Azure DevOps tools to help you provision and manage these resources. These tools use descriptive languages ​​to define the desired state of your infrastructure, allowing for automatic changes to match that condition.

From entertainment giants like Netflix to automakers like Mercedes-Benz, businesses around the world are using IaC to ensure the consistency, reliability, and stability of their cloud environments. “For both enterprises and large companies, IaC offers significant benefits,” Sunker notes. “Improvements in speed and efficiency, transparency and collaboration, reliability and resiliency, resource management, security, compliance, and flexibility are the main reasons why IaC is gaining so much traction,” he explains.

Automated provisioning. IaC enables rapid infrastructure deployment by automating manual processes that traditionally take hours or even days. IaC scripts and templates can provision resources in minutes, reducing the time and effort required from your DevOps team.

Consistent deployments. IaC integrates seamlessly with your continuous integration and deployment pipelines, enabling consistent and repeatable deployments. This integration ensures that infrastructure changes are tested and deployed alongside your application code, reducing errors and downtime.

“When you manage your environments using IaC, you’re much more agile than your industry competitors, who are mired in manual processes,” Sunker says. “You have the creative freedom to experiment and test new features in sandboxes that you can set up and unset up very easily, giving you the space to innovate without worrying about potential downstream implications.”

Unified documentation. IaC ensures that your infrastructure configurations are documented in code, making them accessible and understandable to all members of the DevOps team. This documentation is always up to date and indicates the current state of your infrastructure. “It acts as a living repository, which is necessary for modern workplaces: teams evolve, employees move or change roles, and it’s helpful to have comprehensive documentation at your fingertips,” advises Sunker.

Version control. Using version control systems for infrastructure code reduces discrepancies, increases transparency, and improves collaboration. Your team members can track changes, revert to previous versions, and view the full change history. “Improved teamwork is a byproduct of IaC,” Sunker says. “There’s typically better alignment between your development, operations, and cybersecurity staff because everyone is working with the same infrastructure definitions. Clear communication is good for business.”

Reduction of errors. IaC ensures consistent environments across development, testing, and production by minimizing human error associated with manual configuration: automated scripts and templates reduce the risk of errors and misconfigurations. “You know that saying about having too many cooks in the kitchen? It’s a cliché, but it’s true. The more hands involved, the greater the risk of spoiling the proverbial sauce. Or, in this case, your environments. With IaC, you can mitigate the inconsistencies that are so common when groups of people are involved in configuration,” Sunker says.

Disaster recovery. IaC enables reliable disaster recovery through repeatable infrastructure configurations. In the event of a failure, the infrastructure can be rebuilt automatically from code, ensuring business continuity and resilience even in the most challenging situations.

Cost optimization. IaC enables detailed monitoring and optimization of infrastructure costs. “IaC tools can provide deep, granular insights into your resource utilization and help you identify areas where you can improve your budget and save money,” Sunker notes. “With rising technology costs weighing on operational budgets around the world, the ability to ensure predictable spending is a major asset.”

Reduction of waste. IaC helps in better resource allocation and management, reducing waste. You have the flexibility to scale resources up and down based on your business models and automated scaling ensures that your resources are only used when needed.

Security as a code. With IaC, security measures can be added to your code, ensuring compliance from the start. Automated policies and controls can also help you enforce security standards consistently across all your infrastructure environments. “Consistency is key when it comes to security,” says Sunker. “With IaC, you can apply your firewall rules, access control settings, and other safeguards the same way across all domains.”

Compliance and governance. IaC helps you maintain regulatory compliance by defining and enforcing policies through code. You can track every change, identify and fix vulnerabilities, and ensure your infrastructure meets industry best practices and guidelines.

Easier scaling. IaC makes it easy to scale your infrastructure (up or down) based on demand. You can use automated scripts to adjust your resources in real time, ensuring optimal performance and cost-effectiveness.

The freedom to adapt. With IaC, you have the flexibility to adapt to changing business needs and respond to new technologies. Plus, when new tools and services become available, they can be integrated into your existing IaC frameworks with minimal disruption.

“By automating the provisioning and management of infrastructure through code, you can achieve unprecedented levels of speed, efficiency, and consistency across your business,” Sunker notes. “Ultimately, IaC can enable an organization to easily scale and adapt its infrastructure, keep up with changing technologies, respond quickly to internal and market demands, and maintain a competitive advantage. As Azure adoption increases and, with it, the integration of DevOps methodologies, IaC will become a major factor in IT infrastructure management,” he concludes.

Satish Sunker, BUI Cloud Solutions Architect, has over two decades of experience in the IT industry and extensive technical experience in enterprise architecture and IaaS, PaaS and network design.