Infrastructure as Code, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. What Is Infrastructure as Code?

If you work in a team that builds and runs IT infrastructure, then cloud and infrastructure automation technology should help you deliver more value in less time, and to do it more reliably. But in practice, it drives ever-increasing size, complexity, and diversity of things to manage.

These technologies are especially relevant as organizations become digital. “Digital” is how people in business attire say that software systems are essential to what the organization does.¹ The move to digital increases the pressure on you to do more and to do it faster. You need to add and support more services. More business activities. More employees. More customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

Cloud and automation tools help by making it far easier to add and change infrastructure. But many teams struggle to find enough time to keep up with the infrastructure they already have. Making it easier to create even more stuff to manage is unhelpful. As one of my clients told me, “Using cloud knocked down the walls that kept our tire fire contained."²

Many people respond to the threat of unbounded chaos by tightening their change management processes. They hope that they can prevent chaos by limiting and controlling changes. So they wrap the cloud in chains.

There are two problems with this. One is that it removes the benefits of using cloud technology; the other is that users want the benefits of cloud technology. So users bypass the people who are ...