Explore environment deployment
Have you ever received a late-night emergency call because a server crashed? The scramble to find documentation—often scattered across spreadsheets and people's memories—highlights the challenges of manual infrastructure management. Maintaining consistency between development, testing, and production environments adds even more complexity.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) eliminates these problems by treating infrastructure like software code. Instead of manually setting up servers, you define your infrastructure in code files that can be version controlled, reviewed, and automatically deployed.
Manual deployment versus infrastructure as code
A helpful way to understand this difference is the "pets versus cattle" analogy:
Pets approach (Manual deployment):
- Each server has a unique name and configuration.
- Servers receive individual care and manual updates.
- Losing a server is a significant problem requiring careful restoration.
- You treat each server as irreplaceable.
Cattle approach (Infrastructure as Code):
- Servers follow standardized configurations.
- Servers are numbered rather than individually named.
- Replacing a failed server is straightforward—just provision another identical one.
- Individual servers are disposable and easily replaced.
With IaC, if a server fails, you simply run your deployment script to create a new one with the exact same configuration. No manual steps, no documentation hunting, no inconsistencies.
Implementing infrastructure as code
IaC captures your entire environment in text files that describe your infrastructure declaratively or imperatively. These files specify:
- Networks: Virtual networks, subnets, security groups, routing rules.
- Compute resources: Virtual machines, containers, serverless functions.
- Storage: Databases, blob storage, file shares.
- Other services: Load balancers, CDNs, monitoring tools.
You check these definition files into version control (like Git), treating them just like application source code. This enables:
- Change tracking: See who changed what and when.
- Code review: Team members review infrastructure changes before deployment.
- Rollback capability: Return to previous versions if problems arise.
- Branch strategies: Test infrastructure changes in separate branches.
For example, adding a new server becomes simple:
- Edit the infrastructure definition file.
- Submit a pull request for review.
- Merge and run the deployment pipeline.
- The new server provisions automatically.
No need to remote into environments or follow multi-step manual procedures.
Comparison: Manual deployment versus Infrastructure as Code
| Manual deployment | Infrastructure as code |
|---|---|
| Snowflake servers: Each server uniquely configured | Consistent servers: Identical configuration across environments |
| Variable steps: Deployment varies by environment | Standardized process: Same steps create any environment |
| Manual verification: Multiple checks with human intervention | Automated validation: Tests run automatically before deployment |
| Heavy documentation: Extensive guides needed for differences | Code as documentation: Infrastructure definition IS the documentation |
| Risky deployments: Weekend windows to allow recovery time | Safe deployments: Blue/green strategies minimize downtime |
| Slow cadence: Fewer releases to avoid long weekends | Fast cadence: Deploy frequently with confidence |
| Pets: Servers need individual care | Cattle: Servers easily replaced |
Benefits of infrastructure as code
IaC provides numerous advantages for modern infrastructure management:
- Complete auditability: Every infrastructure change tracked in version control—see exactly what was deployed, when, and by whom.
- Environment consistency: Development, testing, and production environments use identical configurations, eliminating "works on my machine" problems.
- Faster provisioning: Automated deployments create environments in minutes instead of days.
- Reduced costs: Less time spent on manual tasks, fewer errors requiring fixes.
- Self-documenting: Infrastructure code serves as always-current documentation.
- Automated testing: Run tests on infrastructure changes before deploying to production.
- Scalability: Easily scale up (bigger servers) or scale out (more servers) by adjusting parameters.
- Disaster recovery: Quickly recreate entire environments from code if disasters occur.
- Immutable infrastructure: Instead of updating running servers (risky), deploy new servers with updates and remove old ones.
- Blue/green deployments: Maintain two identical environments—deploy changes to the inactive one, test thoroughly, then switch traffic over. If problems arise, switch back immediately.
- Multi-cloud flexibility: Some IaC tools (like Terraform) work across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, reducing vendor lock-in.