Explore the fundamentals of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Cloud Computing, and modern DevOps practices to accelerate your journey.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice that allows developers and IT teams to manage and provision computing infrastructure through code instead of manual processes. IaC automates the setup and maintenance of servers, databases, networks, and other infrastructure components.
In the past, setting up infrastructure involved manually configuring physical or virtual servers, networks, and storage. With IaC, the process becomes automated, which means you can create, update, or delete infrastructure with a few simple commands. This not only reduces human error but also makes the process faster, more consistent, and scalable.
IaC is widely used in cloud environments, where resources like servers, storage, and databases can be easily created or scaled based on demand. By writing code to define the desired state of infrastructure, teams can ensure consistency across environments and improve collaboration.
The key benefits of IaC include:
A tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently across cloud providers.
Amazon’s IaC tool to model and set up AWS resources, automating infrastructure management.
A configuration management and automation tool that simplifies the setup of infrastructure components.
DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). The goal is to shorten the software development lifecycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality.
DevOps emphasizes collaboration between development and operations teams. In traditional setups, developers write code and pass it to operations teams to deploy. This handoff often leads to delays, misunderstandings, and errors. DevOps breaks down these silos and encourages communication and shared responsibilities between teams. The result? Faster development cycles and more stable, reliable software.
DevOps uses automation and monitoring tools to streamline and accelerate the process of building, testing, and deploying applications. It also focuses on continuous feedback loops to ensure that software is always improving and adapting to changes quickly.
Key principles of DevOps include:
A platform for developing, shipping, and running applications inside lightweight containers.
An open-source container orchestration platform for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
An open-source automation server to automate building, testing, and deploying software.
CI/CD refers to a set of practices that automate the processes of integration, testing, and delivery of code, helping developers to release software more frequently and reliably.
Continuous Integration (CI) focuses on the practice of frequently integrating code changes into a shared repository. Developers commit their code changes to the repository multiple times a day. Each commit is automatically built and tested, ensuring that bugs are identified and fixed early in the development process.
Continuous Delivery (CD) extends the concept of CI by automating the deployment process. With CD, code changes are automatically deployed to testing, staging, or production environments after passing tests. This ensures that new features and bug fixes are delivered to users quickly and reliably.
The benefits of CI/CD include:
A cloud-based CI/CD platform for automating the software development pipeline.
CI/CD workflows integrated directly into GitHub for automation.
A service for building and testing code on GitHub repositories, integrated with CI/CD pipelines.
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services (such as storage, processing, networking, and software) over the internet. Instead of owning and maintaining physical servers, companies can rent computing resources from cloud service providers.
Cloud computing enables businesses and individuals to access powerful computing resources on-demand, without having to invest in or maintain physical infrastructure. Whether you’re running websites, storing data, or running complex applications, cloud services offer flexibility and scalability to meet your needs.
There are three primary types of cloud computing services:
Cloud computing is often preferred by organizations because it offers the following advantages:
The leading cloud platform offering IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS solutions.
Microsoft's cloud platform for building, testing, and deploying applications.
Google's cloud offering that provides powerful computing, storage, and analytics services.