Infrastructure as code is the idea that you can manage and treat your infrastructure like source code. It enables you to do things like take software engineering practices such as test driven development or continuous integration, for example. But it's not so much one type of language or the other is the right language to use for infrastructure code. I think there are different concerns, different things going on in an infrastructure code base. And some of them are more appropriate to use a declarative language than others.
"With Infrastructure as Code, you’re not trying to kind of reverse engineer or understand what ended up somehow onto each system, you’re actually saying, this is how the system is built and because it’s built from that code. So there is no difference."
In this episode, I had an in-depth discussion with Kief Morris, the author of the O’Reilly “Infrastructure as Code” book. We started from what is Infrastructure as Code and why we should implement this important concept for managing our infrastructure, especially in the cloud era. We also discussed Infrastructure as Code principles, patterns, anti-patterns, pipeline, testing, and also recent new tools in this space. Kief also mentioned about his upcoming 2nd edition of the Infrastructure as Code book and what new changes that he is introducing. Do not miss our Pet vs Cattle discussion!
Listen out for:
- Kief’s career journey and how he started doing infrastructure as code - [00:03:22]
- How Kief got into writing Infrastructure as Code Book - [00:07:24]
- What is Infrastructure as Code and why - [00:10:35]
- Pet vs Cattle - [00:18:56]
- Infrastructure as Code principles & patterns - [00:20:15]
- Automation fear - [00:27:06]
- Refactoring infrastructure code - [00:30:49]
- Infrastructure as Code pipeline & testing - [00:36:17]
- Pulumi and CDK - [00:48:29]
- Infrastructure as Code anti-pattern example - [00:50:07]
- 2nd edition of Infrastructure as Code book - [00:51:40]
- Infrastructure as Code reverse engineering - [00:53:40]
- Kief’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:02]
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Kief Morris’s Bio
Kief is a Global Director of Cloud Engineering at ThoughtWorks. He enjoys helping organisations adopt cloud age technologies and practices. This usually involves buzzwords like cloud, digital platforms, infrastructure automation, DevOps, and Continuous Delivery. Originally from Tennessee, Kief has been building teams to deliver software as a service in London since the dotcom days. He is the author of “Infrastructure as Code”, published by O’Reilly.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/5.
