What is Infrastructure as Code? š¤ and the difference of IaC Tools
TechWorld with Nana
Posted on August 28, 2020
With the below Infrastructure as Code video š¬ you'll get a good overview of what Infrastructure as Code is and how the IaC tools differ from each other.
What is Infrastructure as Code? š¤
To understand the Infrastructure as Code concept better, I explain how DevOps tasks were done
- before automation and
- after automation.
āŗ DevOps tasks BEFORE automation
Before automation you were doing everything by hand šš¼:
- setup servers
- configure networking
- install and configure software
- etc.
In addition to that all the tasks needed to be done for multiple environments like DEV, TEST and PROD environment. š¤¦š¼āāļø
āŗ DevOps tasks AFTER automation
Now, Infrastructure as Code is a way to automate all these DevOps tasks end to end instead of doing it manually. š
All the knowledge and expertise of system administrators or DevOps engineers are packed into programs and applications that carry out those tasks.
So, Infrastructure as Code or IaC is a concept and there are Infrastructure as Code tools, like Ansible, Puppet, Terraform or Cloudformation etc that you can use for different tasks.
Difference of Infrastructure as Code tools š
Why do we have so many different tools, can't we just use one IaC tool? š
Well, no. Because no tool can do everything and each one is great in a specific area. IaC tools automate tasks in different categories for different phases:
3 main task categories:
- infrastructure provisioning
- configuration of provisioned infrastructure
- deployment of application
Distinction of phases:
- initial setup phase
- maintaining phase
So, in most cases you would use a combination of 2 or more IaC tools.
Distinction in how they work
Moreover, the IaC tools differ in the way HOW they work:
- declarative vs procedural
- mutable vs immutable
- agent vs agentless
Watch the full video here š¤
āŗ Get 30% off - with this code: UDEMY_NANA_OCT2020: Udemy course here
āŗ Kubernetes 101: Compact and easy-to-read ebook bundle š
It's a handy way to quickly look something up or refresh your knowledge at work and use it as your cheatsheet š
Like, share and follow me š for more content:
Posted on August 28, 2020
Join Our Newsletter. No Spam, Only the good stuff.
Sign up to receive the latest update from our blog.