Infrastructure as Code, 3rd Edition

Chapter 3. Infrastructure Platforms

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Different people define the scope of infrastructure in very different ways, often within the broad context of platform engineering, a concept which itself is wide and fuzzy. This chapter defines a scope of infrastructure that is useful for discussing Infrastructure as Code, and puts it into the context of the system as a whole.

Figure 3-1 shows three high-level system layers. Applications sit in the top layer, digital products and services that offer business capabilities to customers and other users. Applications are supported by platform services provided in the engineering platform layer. Platform services include those used to host software, like container clusters and virtual servers, as well as operational services like monitoring.

Figure 3-1. An infrastructure platform supports higher ...