Managing a complex IT infrastructure is no joke, and as you know, it requires a dedicated team of professionals. Well, at least it used to. Nowadays, IaC (infrastructure as code) aims to provide business leaders with a concrete solution to their IT needs, making sure that any infrastructure is easier to manage through automation and numerous handy features that allow you to minimise financial waste and redirect talent in your company towards bigger and better things.
This is especially important in times of cloud technology, and now that companies all over the world are increasingly migrating to the cloud, provisioning complex infrastructures and building efficient data centres can seem like a daunting task.
This is why it’s important to demystify the IaC model and highlight the benefits it brings to the modern business world. Today, we are taking a look at the five key benefits and features of IaC and how it can help you manage your infrastructure with ease while allowing you to grow and take your company forward as a whole.
Ensuring consistency in configuration
When the business migrates its operations to the cloud, IT experts are tasked with deploying the infrastructure and configure it to avoid human error and inconsistencies, prevent resource waste and mismanagement, and ensure that all applications are performing as intended. During the setup faze, there are many things that can go wrong, and even the subtlest differences in configuration can be difficult to spot and debug. This invariably leads to subpar results and can even prevent you from managing your operation without any downtime – which is usually the key objective during a migration.
Deploying a complex cloud infrastructure takes time and effort, but the infrastructure as code model helps alleviate the pressure and expedite the process by completely standardizing the setup of your infrastructure to minimize the risk of errors or inconsistencies. In turn, this reduces the risk of coming up against incompatibility issues that will stifle your applications and operational efficiency.
Improving efficiency in software development
Software development is a complex process that requires the careful collaboration of numerous developers, and even cross-collaboration between development and operations. To make a software development process as efficient and effective and prevent setbacks, companies will often employ the DevOps model to bridge the gap between operations and development, automate and standardize process, and ensure incremental progress on a daily basis. DevOps also helps transform testing to make it more efficient and coherent for all teams, so that development can move along without setbacks.
Infrastructure as code allows you to easily deploy the cloud architecture in numerous stages to aid and expedite development, but it also allows your developers to build their own sandbox environments where they can develop with ease. On the other end of the spectrum, QA specialists can have constant access to copies of the production cycle in real time, allowing them to test quickly and act on a moment’s notice to uncover any bugs and possible errors. What’s more, you can use IaC to spin down the environments you’re not using, which leads to better resource management and greater financial savings.
Reducing the risk of human error
One of the biggest benefits of the infrastructure as code model is that it takes a comprehensive approach to infrastructure automation in an attempt to bring the risk of human error down to a minimum. Basically, this is a model that codifies everything and reduces the amount of manual labour required to deploy and maintain your cloud infrastructure or your on-site infrastructure. This is an important feature to have if you want to be able to keep managing your infrastructure with ease when, should that happen, your master engineer leaves the company to pursue other career opportunities.
When that happens, the last thing you want is to be left with an infrastructure designed in a way that no other engineer can figure out. With infrastructure as code, you’re getting full documentation and reports on how the infrastructure is set up and how every application works, allowing any new engineers to pick up where the previous ones left off without setbacks or the risk of inadvertently creation new issues into the system.
Supporting long-term financial savings
Through automation and standardisation of core infrastructure management processes, the infrastructure as code model is able to easily facilitate long-term financial savings for your business in the cloud. This allows for more efficient database management but also for smarter payroll decisions and the reduction of extraneous business expenditure over months and years.
With IaC at your side, you’re able to make better hiring decision and only bring mission-critical talent onboard, and it also allows your IT staff and engineers to shift their focus from the menial tasks to mission-critical objectives. Along with the ability to create standardised scripts that eliminate the use of resources that you don’t need, you’re able to ensure long-term financial savings.
Automating infrastructure management to boost productivity
Finally, it’s important to note that the biggest advantage of IaC is probably its ability to maximise the performance and productivity of your IT experts, engineers, and software developers. IaC achieves this mainly by automating infrastructure management and delivering advanced features that make the whole process more sustainable and less demand on your employees. Ultimately, this can help you scale down your IT requirements and make better long-term decisions while making your operation more efficient and flexible in the process.
Wrapping up
The IaC model revolutionises the way we look at data centres and cloud infrastructures, and now is the time to integrate it into your operation. Use these insights to implement IaC and pave the road to higher productivity, efficiency, and financial savings in the years to come.
Emma is a digital marketer and blogger from Sydney. After getting a marketing degree she started working with Australian startups on business and marketing development. Emma writes for many relevant, industry related online publications and does a job of an Executive Editor at Bizzmark blog and a guest lecturer at Melbourne University. Interested in marketing, startups and latest business trends. Follow Emma on Twitter @EmmaRWorden