Using Infrastructure as Code with Operations Runbooks

Bob Walker's article discusses his experiences and insights gained from transitioning his Infrastructure as Code (IaC) processes to use Runbooks in Octopus Deploy, particularly in preparing for the Octopus 2020.1 release webinar. He highlights the challenges and quirks he faced with his initial deployment process, such as managing infrastructure setup and teardown across multiple environments and regions, and the complexity of variable scoping. By splitting his IaC process into two separate Runbooks for spinning up and tearing down infrastructure, he was able to simplify his workflow and eliminate the need for a specific "Teardown" environment, thereby reducing complexity and improving efficiency. Walker also addresses the issue of cloud provider lock-in and the benefits of using third-party tools like Hashicorp's Terraform for a more unified approach across different platforms. He emphasizes the advantages of Runbooks, such as not requiring a release for each run, which provided a cleaner and more streamlined process for managing infrastructure.