Improving Cloud Infrastructure: Using Software Development Methods for Infrastructure as Code
In today's world, the cloud is essential for businesses, helping companies to move forward rapidly and keep up with the fast development phase. But, managing cloud infrastructure is getting more complex, and we need better ways to handle it. Jouni Rajala, an industry veteran who has worked in software development in various roles for over 20 years, shares his learnings on managing the cloud safely and professionally. He believes using good software development practices for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is essential to make cloud projects successful.
Changes in How We Develop Cloud Infrastructure
In the past, managing infrastructure meant doing a lot manually, like setting up physical machines and writing scripts to set up the machines. This approach required much manual work and didn’t scale for the demands of modern, scalable, and flexible cloud environments. IaC changed everything by letting us set up and manage infrastructure easily as if it were software. But just writing code for infrastructure isn't enough; the real improvement comes when we use good software development practices with it.
Using Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD) for IaC
In software development, Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) help us ensure a fast feedback loop when code changes are tested and released smoothly and quickly. Jouni Rajala says these practices are just as crucial for IaC. They enable the cloud to be updated easily without causing problems. This approach streamlines updates and deployments and significantly reduces the risk of downtime and errors in cloud infrastructure.
“When building cloud solutions, it’s crucial to test that infrastructure can be upgraded from one version to the next safely and seamlessly.”
Testing the Infrastructure
We learned from Rajala that IaC should be treated with as much care as software code. That means using version control and agreeing on coding guidelines for testing, CI/CD, code reviews, and documentation. These practices make it easier to keep track of changes, understand them, and fix them if needed, just like in software development. And best of all, it enables you to work as a team.
One issue with IaC is figuring out how to test it properly. Rajala has learned that using software unit testing frameworks causes problems when used with infrastructure code. You need automated acceptance testing tools, which validate how cloud environments should work and what requirements they should fulfil. Tests should cover different situations to make sure the infrastructure works well no matter what.
“Infrastructure as Code is code just as much as application code is, and the same best practices should apply to infra code that applies to software development.”
The Benefits of Software Development Practices in the Cloud Infrastructure
Applying software development practices to IaC has many advantages, such as:
Better reliability: End-to-end testing and automation find problems early, reducing failures.
Enables agility: CI/CD lets us change or fix infrastructure quickly and confidently.
Easier to scale: It's easy to change the infrastructure size as needed because the infrastructure code defines it, and acceptance tests validate it still passes the requirements.
Improved security: Reviews and automated security checks help ensure the infrastructure is safe now and after every change.
Confidentiality for changes: Even after a long time without changes, you still have the safety and trust for the process.
A Focus on Quality
The discussion with Rajala evolves towards a mindset with a blend of testing and operations focused on enhancing the quality and reliability of the cloud infrastructure. This approach helps keep up with the rapid development cycles and diverse requirements of modern cloud platforms, ensuring that infrastructure can keep pace with the continuously changing demands and future technology innovations.
Conclusion: The Easy Steps Forward
As cloud infrastructure gets more complex, Jouni Rajala's advice shows a clear way forward. By applying good software development practices with infrastructure code, companies can build robust and efficient cloud services that can grow and evolve. The best value you get when you apply these practices from day one.
With a few small steps, you can get started:
Store the infrastructure code in version control and start following code review practices.
Parametrise your infrastructure code to make building short-living environments easy.
Implement the first automated acceptance test to your CI pipeline that validates code change and still passes the defined requirements in a temporary environment.
Build continuous requirements validation for production environments and provide a dashboard for teams to see if the current state is healthy.
After every change to the code base, continuously improve the acceptance tests to make them cover all the requirements.
By embracing the joint of software development best practices and Infrastructure as Code, teams can make automation do the validation and free up time for exploring ways to get the full potential of their cloud infrastructure and building the way for innovation and operational excellence in the cloud era.