Infrastructure as Code vs Traditional Infrastructure is a big debate raging in the industry these days.
In one corner of this showdown is Infrastructure as Code or IaC – a revolutionary approach to managing IT infrastructure.
Imagine the experience of provisioning, configuring and managing your entire IT infrastructure using simple, human-readable code. It’s like having a recipe for your IT infrastructure that you can use any time you want.
With IaC, you are able to treat your infrastructure as you would any other software development project – with version control, testing and continuous integration and deployment.
If you have spent countless hours in the trenches configuring servers manually, nothing would please you more than seeing the power of infrastructure as code.
However, in the other corner, you have the 500-pound gorilla in the form of the so-called traditional infrastructure management. It has been the go-to approach to provision infrastructure for many years.
In the traditional approach, things such as configuration and maintenance of servers, networking equipment and other IT assets are done manually or using special scripts. Think of it as cooking without a recipe. You have all the ingredients but you have to figure out how to use the ingredients and in what order to get the desired outcome.
This can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. However, it’s a pretty familiar and comfortable approach for many IT professionals.
Nevertheless, with the ever-growing complexity of software and infrastructure, even seasoned IT professionals are finding it tough to manage infrastructure.
In this post, I will help you decide if the traditional approach is still valid for you or if it is time to adopt infrastructure as code.
1 – Differences between IaC and Traditional Approach
There are some key areas where infrastructure-as-code differs heavily from the traditional approach.
Understanding those key areas is extremely important to make a valid decision about which approach to choose. Let’s look at them in more detail.
Automation in IaC vs Traditional
There are three main activities that you need with an infrastructure setup
- Provisioning of servers
- Configuration of server
- Deployment of applications
All of these 3 activities can be automated using infrastructure-as-code tools.
For example, with an IaC tool like Terraform, you can define your infrastructure as code by using a simple, human-readable language and then use Terraform to provision and configure your infrastructure, across multiple cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
Automation is where infrastructure-as-code really shines compared to the traditional approach of managing infrastructure.
With IaC, you can turn tedious and repetitive infrastructure management tasks into a fun and exciting experience. Imagine being able to provision and configure the entire IT infrastructure with just a few lines of code while sipping on a cappuccino. No more manual setups, no more errors and no more wasted time!
On the other hand, automation in the traditional approach is limited to a few specific tasks such as routine maintenance and reporting. Manual intervention is still required for many tasks, increasing the risk of errors and reducing efficiency.
Repeatability in IaC vs Traditional
Another huge area of difference between the infrastructure-as-code vs traditional approach is repeatability.
With IaC, you can achieve repeatability in your infrastructure management. This opens up several possibilities such as:
- Ability to consistently reproduce your production environment in test and development environments
- Quick recovery from failures or disasters by reproducing your infrastructure in a fresh environment
- Migrating your infrastructure to a new cloud provider
Repeatability is a big challenge in traditional infrastructure. Manual processes and human errors can cause inconsistencies between environments.
In the traditional approach, knowledge is often concentrated in the minds of a few key people. Even then, it’s tough to apply the same set of processes every single time. If documentation is present, it might not be updated.
This is nowhere near the sophistication you can achieve using Terraform configuration files or AWS Cloud Formation templates.
Version Control in IaC vs Traditional
Who did it?
This is a common question asked in teams where infrastructure is managed manually by a group of people. There is always the traceability issue about someone changing the server configuration or modifying some settings.
Some teams try to keep track of changes manually using excel sheets. But in my view, such attempts usually end in failure over a period of time.
With IaC, you can manage the infrastructure using version control systems such as Git. This allows you to:
- Keep track of changes to your infrastructure, including the answer to questions such as who made the change and when was it made
- Revert to previous versions of the change in case of any issues or errors
- Improved team collaboration, allowing multiple people to make changes to the infrastructure in a controlled and organized manner
2 – Advantages of Traditional Infrastructure over IaC
Despite the overwhelming benefits that infrastructure-as-code can provide, traditional infrastructure still has a significant presence within the industry.
In fact, a majority of organizations are still employing age-old infrastructure management techniques without any plans for upgrading.
So are there any advantages of traditional infrastructure over infrastructure-as-code? Let’s find out.
- Familiarity – Traditional infrastructure management may be more familiar to some IT professionals who are used to manual tools for handling servers, making it easier to adopt for some organizations.
- Fine-grained control – In the traditional approach, IT professionals may have extremely fine-grained control over their infrastructure. Almost like a God mode. This allows them to make manual adjustments as and when needed.
- No learning curve – There may be a learning curve for engineers when adopting IaC, as they must learn new tools and processes. With the traditional infrastructure approach, there is no such requirement except knowing your way around the setup.
- No software license costs – With the traditional approach, there are no software license costs. The infrastructure management is done manually with no need for additional tools and technologies. Of course, with the advent of open-source IaC tools, this advantage is eroding pretty quickly.
3 – Infrastructure as Code vs Traditional Infrastructure – When to use what?
Having understood the key differences between the two, the natural question would be on when to use Infrastructure as Code vs Traditional.
Here are some scenarios where a particular approach may be more appropriate than the other:
- Use Infrastructure as Code when:
- You require repeatable and scalable infrastructure
- You want to manage infrastructure as code with proper version control
- You have a need to collaborate with multiple team members on infrastructure management
- You need to manage infrastructure across multiple environments and cloud providers
- Use Traditional Approach when:
- You prefer manual and fine-grained control over your infrastructure
- You don’t want to incur additional software license costs
- Your infrastructure is small with minimal management requirements
- You have a high degree of customization in your infrastructure that would not be suitable for automation
Conclusion
In conclusion, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Traditional Infrastructure Management (TIM) are both methods for managing IT infrastructure.
However, they differ in fundamental ways.
IaC provides the benefits of automation, repeatability and version control. On the other hand, the traditional infrastructure approach offers fine-grained control and more direct management.
When making a decision about the IaC vs traditional approach debate, it’s important to consider the specific needs and goals of your organization. You should choose the approach that best meets those requirements.
Ultimately, the most important thing is to choose a management approach that helps your organization meet its infrastructure management goals and objectives.
That was all for this post.
In case you want to get started with your first IaC tool, check out this post on using Terraform to create a Docker container.
If you liked it or found it useful, consider sharing it with friends and colleagues. Also, don’t hesitate to share your views about the topic in the comments section below.
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