Useful Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools

for 2024
Picture a world where building, managing, and sealing complex infrastructure is as
straightforward as writing lines of code. Welcome to the domain of Infrastructure as Code (IaC),
where the traditional landscape of infrastructure setup and maintenance gives rise to the
efficiency and agility of software development principles.

Hold tight as we explore how IaC is revolutionizing IT operations, thereby empowering teams to
automate infrastructure deployment, enforce consistency, and accelerate innovations like never
before.

In this post, we will explain how IaC works and why it's important, as well as cover the most
widely used IaC tools on the market today.

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

IaC empowers system administrators and IT practitioners to automate infrastructure
provisioning, management, and deployment through the use of declarative or imperative code.
They define and manage infrastructure configurations using programming languages or
descriptive files.

With IaC, organizations can scale, replicate, and manage their infrastructure efficiently while
ensuring consistency and repeatability across diverse environments.

Why Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Certainly, IaC revolutionizes infrastructure provisioning, management, and deployment, actively
automating tasks through code. This approach empowers organizations to define and manage
their infrastructure using programming languages. IaC comes with several benefits to the
organizations, such as:

 Streamlined automation through infrastructure provisioning, configuration, and

deployment processes reduces manual intervention and minimizes human error.
  Enhanced scalability is achieved through code-based configurations, which enable
organizations to quickly scale infrastructure resources up or down to meet changing
demands, thereby ensuring efficient resource utilization.
 Consistency and standardizations: organizations can enforce consistent configurations
across environments, promoting standardization and reducing configuration drift.
 Promotes collaborations as infrastructure configurations are codified. The team can
collaborate more effectively by leveraging version control systems on code repositories.
 IaC expedites deployment cycles, ensuring quicker time-to-market for applications and
services by facilitating rapid provisioning of infrastructure resources.

Popular Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools for 2024

As previously noted, IaC guarantees efficient management and provisioning of computing
infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than relying on manual processes
or interactive configuration tools. These files are typically written in languages such as YAML
or JSON. They define the intended state of the infrastructure, encompassing servers, networks,
storage, and additional resources.

IaC tools, on the other hand, interpret these files to automate the deployment, configuration, and
management of infrastructure across different environments, such as cloud platforms,
virtualization platforms, and on-premises data centers. Various IaC tools have been developed to
aid in the automation processes. They include:

Terraform
Terraform, an open-source IaC tool, actively automates infrastructure provisioning and
management. System administrators can define desired infrastructure states using declarative
configuration files written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) or JSON. Terraform
then generates an execution plan, executes changes by interacting with infrastructure APIs, and
maintains a state file to track resources.

It best suits organizations requiring multi-cloud provisioning, scalable architectures, DevOps

practices integration, immutable infrastructure, complex orchestration needs, lifecycle
management, and compliance enforcement.
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation actively automates the provisioning and management of AWS
infrastructure resources as an AWS-native service. Users and system administrators actively
define infrastructure configurations using JSON or YAML, specifying the desired state of
resources such as EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and RDS databases. CloudFormation orchestrates
the creation, updating, and deleting of resources based on these templates.

It works by interpreting the templates and using AWS APIs to enact the specified changes,
ensuring consistent and reliable infrastructure deployments. CloudFormation best suits
organizations seeking streamlined AWS resource management, IaC implementation, and
automated environment replication and scaling.

Azure Resource Manager (ARM)

Azure Resource Manager, offered by Microsoft Azure, actively oversees and provisions Azure
resources. System administrators can define infrastructure configurations using JSON templates.
The templates detail the desired resources, including Virtual Machines, storage accounts, and
networking components. ARM interprets these templates and interacts with Azure APIs to
deploy, update, or delete resources accordingly.

It enables users to consistently and efficiently manage Azure resources, facilitating automated
infrastructure deployments and ensuring consistent configurations across environments. ARM
best suits organizations leveraging Microsoft Azure for cloud computing, requiring automated
resource provisioning, and implementing IaC practices for scalable and repeatable deployments.

Google Cloud Deployment Manager (CDM)

Google Cloud Deployment Manager manages and orchestrates the provision of Google Cloud
Platform (GCP) resources. Users and system administrators define the infrastructure
configurations using YAML or Jinja templates. They specify the desired state of resources such
as Virtual Machines, Cloud Storage buckets, and networking components. CDM interprets these
templates and interacts with GCP templates to deploy, update, and delete resources accordingly.

It facilitates streamlined management of GCP resources, thereby allowing users to automate

infrastructure deployments and maintain consistency across environments. CDM best suits
organizations utilizing Google Cloud Platform for cloud services, seeking automated resource
provisioning, and implementing IaC practices for efficient and scalable deployments.

Ansible
Ansible, an open-source tool, handles configuration management, application deployment, and
task automation. It connects to remote hosts via SSH or WinRM and executes tasks defined in
playbooks written in YAML format. Ansible playbooks define the desired state of systems,
including configurations to be applied and tasks to be executed.

Ansible then actively applies these configurations and tasks to the target systems, ensuring
consistency across infrastructure. It's best suited for organizations requiring streamlined
configuration management, application deployment automation, and infrastructure orchestration
in both on-premises and cloud environments.

Pulumi
Pulumi is an IaC tool that empowers users to define and manage cloud infrastructure using
programming languages like Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Go. Rather than relying on
declarative configuration files, Pulumi grants users the ability to write infrastructure code using
commonly known programming languages, offering the flexibility and robustness of genuine
programming constructs.

Users define infrastructure resources and their configurations using Pulumi’s language-specific
libraries. Pulumi subsequently converts this code into essential API calls to cloud providers,
facilitating the provisioning and management of resources. It seamlessly integrates with leading
cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Pulumi is ideal for organizations aiming for infrastructure automation with the versatility and
expressiveness inherent in programming languages, seamlessly integrating IaC practices into
their established development workflows.

Chef
Chef, an automation tool for configuration management and IaC, functions by defining
infrastructure configurations through code written in its Domain-Specific Language (DSL) or
Ruby. Users can specify desired states for their system configurations, such as package
installations, file configurations, and service management, within Chef recipes. These recipes are
then applied to target systems using Chef clients, ensuring the systems converge to the desired
state.

Chef integrates with cloud providers, virtualization platforms, and on-premises environments,
enabling consistent and scalable infrastructure management. It's best suited for organizations
requiring centralized configuration management, automated deployment of system
configurations, and enforcement of infrastructure policies across diverse environments.

Vagrant
Vagrant is an open-source tool for creating and managing virtualized development environments.
It works by utilizing configuration files, typically written in Ruby or YAML, to define the
specification of a Virtual Machine (VM) or container. Users can specify operating systems,
software packages, networking, and storage configurations. Vagrant then interacts with
virtualization providers such as VirtualBox, VMware, or Docker to provision or manage the VM
or container according to defined specifications.

It allows developers to easily replicate and share their development environments across teams,
ensuring consistency and reproducibility in development workflows. Vagrant is best suited for
situations where developers need isolated and reproducible development environments, such as
software development, testing, and collaboration on projects with specific dependencies or
configurations.

Wrapping Up
In conclusion, IaC stands as the foundation of contemporary IT operations, providing a
revolutionary method for managing and provisioning infrastructure. By leveraging automation
and code-driven practices, IaC empowers organizations to boost scalability, enhance efficiency,
and accelerate innovation in unprecedented ways.

As we continue to embrace the principles of IaC, we embark on a journey towards a future where
infrastructure deployment is as seamless as writing lines of code, paving the way for a more
agile, reliable, and resilient digital landscape.