infrastructure can be scaled down by dynamically
decommissioning servers, load balancers, and so on to
save on costs. This elasticity of the infrastructure is
another of the benefits of defining all infrastructure as
code.
By defining infrastructure through code, the
infrastructure becomes transparent in the sense that it is
enough to read the code in the document to know all the
characteristics and features that will be instantiated
when it gets provisioned. Other people can review the
code, make improvements, have the changes tracked
through version control, and make sure the code is in
compliance with the security requirements of the
company.
While change was frowned upon in the infrastructure of
the past, and a limited number of strict change windows
were provided through the year, with infrastructure as
code, change is welcomed and even desired. With
infrastructure as code, change is a catalyst to improve the
reliability and the performance of the infrastructure as a
whole. Just as source code goes through multiple
versions and becomes better with each new release,
infrastructure becomes more resilient and reliable with
each new version.
By using infrastructure as code, it is possible to have
identical environments for testing, integration, and
production. This leads to significantly fewer
troubleshooting steps needed to repair and maintain the
infrastructure and the applications running on top of it.
There are usually two types of approaches to
infrastructure as code: