Contributed ArticleInfrastructure as Code can modernise manual processes in security operations, removing silos and delivering value. A leading benefit of Infrastructure as Code is its ability to transform processes that operate infrastructure. The tools and approach that development teams use to solve engineering challenges has an impact across business.
Infrastructure as Code is popular for cloud environments. It provides a way to describe infrastructure and can be used to automate infrastructure in private or public cloud.
In the past, setting up IT processes have required long lead times due to the manual approach being adopted
Infrastructure as Code enforces immutability. This means each component of the infrastructure architecture is managed using an exact configuration. This approach reduces the possibility of infrastructure shifting into another set of configurations and away from the desired configuration.
Reducing manual operations
In the past, setting up IT processes have required long lead times due to the manual approach being adopted.
Infrastructure as Code on the other hand, allows technology teams to setup the required infrastructure in much shorter times, usually in a matter of minutes, and a few keystrokes. And if the environment needs to be modified, duplicated, or scaled, this can be done by amending the source code within.
Operational tasks using infrastructure are defined by code that can trigger automated processes, which continuously cross check runtime configuration and the required actions.
Infrastructure as Code allows technology teams to setup the required infrastructure in much shorter times
Infrastructure as Code is now a key technology for cloud environments, where application scaling is required to be automatic.
Managing costs and risks
Across the end-to-end application lifecycle, there are places where unplanned manual processes can create additional delays.
Flexibility to change cloud resource configurations are limited to manage costs and to control security risks. IT teams that manually operate and setup infrastructure are trained to work within defined cost policies. Similarly, security teams need time to triage findings from assessments and penetration tests. Infrastructure as Code can provide benefits for these processes as well.
Infrastructure as Code captures infrastructure, including instance types, configurations, security groups, relationships between resources, network accessibility and more.
Prior to Infrastructure as Code, the only other reliable source was the configuration of the runtime environment itself. And if bugs were not fixed before this provisioning stage, then a business would need to bear that cost or the associated risk.
Modern software development is leveraging automation extensively, and this trend is only accelerating
Infrastructure as Code now creates an opportunity to analyse these complex systems before they are actually provisioned. Processes such as architecture review, cost analysis, threat modeling and security assessment can be performed earlier.
Powering innovation
Modern software development is leveraging automation extensively, and this trend is only accelerating. Manual operations and security checks during development can significantly slow down and even interrupt the innovation workflow. Infrastructure as Code can enable automation of processes during development, helping to eliminate development and innovation bottlenecks.
Codifying infrastructure and configurations in the source code repository create a single source of truth for the application and enables more codification. Infrastructure as Code can help to automate cloud infrastructure.
Tools such as Policy as Code can also help to improve the integration of Infrastructure as Code by analysing cost policies, configuration policies, security policies, while moving manual controls to automated ones.
While improving the efficiency of the development team, Infrastructure as Code also delivers benefits to the entire organisation in the form of faster innovation, better control over costs and improved security.
Source code is a way to break away from bottlenecks of manually configuring infrastructure, applications, cloud, security, virtual machines.
