As DevOps grows, it helps to know about how it works.
One of the big things in DevOps is infrastructure as code.
This means that you treat your infrastructure the exact same as you would treat your utility code.
Handling infrastructure as code prevents problems like unexpected code changes and configuration divergence between environments like production and development.
It also ensures that every deployment you do is the exact same.
You dont have to worry about those weird differences that happen with manual deploys when this is implemented correctly.
Something else to consider is that you dont need to use different programming languages, like Python or Go.
There will be some tool specific languages, but those are usually simple and have great documentation around them.
The main thing youre changing with infrastructure as code is the way that you handle your systems.
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An artifact is any deployable element that is produced by your build process.
Everything in that directory is what gets deployed to the server.
In the case of infrastructure as code, the artifacts are things like Docker images or VM images.
Some examples of infrastructure artifacts include OS packages, RPMs, and DEBs.
With your artifacts built, it’s crucial that you test them just like you would with code.
After the build is finished, it’s possible for you to run unit and integration tests.
A few tools you might write infrastructure automation with include Chef or Ansible.
you might also check that your packages are being installed as you expect them to be.
Another punch in of testing it’s possible for you to add to your infrastructure code is security testing.
The tools you use will help you build the infrastructure code that you need for your pipelines.
There are a number of open-source and proprietary tools available for just about any infrastructure needs you have.
You might even find that a combination of these tools works the best for you.
The most important thing with infrastructure as code is to understand everything that goes into it.
That means you get the OS and system services ready for use.
Deployment means that there is an automatic process that handles deploying apps and upgrading apps on a server.
Another term youll hear a lot is orchestration.
Orchestration helps coordinate operations across multiple systems.
Then theres configuration management.
It makes sure that applications and packages are maintained and upgraded as needed.
This also handles change control of a systems configuration after the initial provisioning happens.
There are a few important rules in configuration management.
The more complex your infrastructure becomes, the more important it is for these basic rules to be followed.
If youre working with simple applications, it might be worth looking into setting up AWS CloudFormation.
If you have a site with really high uptime requirements, you might use an orchestration tool likeAnsibleor Conducto.
The use cases Ive mentioned here are just some of the common ways infrastructure as code tools are used.
Hopefully these use cases give you a better idea of how useful infrastructure as code can be.
She will give a shot to make anything with JavaScript first.
