What is Infrastructure as Code?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a transformative approach that enables the management and provisioning of computing resources through code rather than manual configuration, thereby aligning infrastructure management with software development practices. Emerging almost two decades after the advent of cloud services, IaC allows developers to efficiently build, deploy, and monitor applications by using coding languages similar to those in software development, ensuring consistent infrastructure configurations across various environments. The approach can be either declarative, specifying the desired state of the system, or imperative, detailing the steps to achieve a particular configuration. Leading tools like AWS CloudFormation and HashiCorp Terraform use the declarative method, while others like Chef adopt an imperative approach. IaC enhances documentation, supports automation, reduces errors, and facilitates frequent deployments, aligning well with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines. This integration not only automates infrastructure deployment but also ensures consistency and scalability while minimizing manual interventions, ultimately fostering better communication and alignment across development teams.