Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means managing your servers and cloud resources using code instead of clicking around in a web interface.
Picture: A person clicking through a cloud console with dozens of dropdown menus.
Imagine you need to set up a database, a web server, and a load balancer. You could click through a cloud console for an hour. But what if you need to do it again next week? What if you need ten copies? Clicking doesn’t scale.
Picture: A configuration file (YAML or Terraform) showing server specifications in text.
With IaC, you write a text file that describes exactly what you want. “Create three web servers. Use this type of computer. Attach this storage.” Then you run a command. The cloud reads your file and creates everything automatically.
Picture: A terminal running terraform apply showing resources being created.
Now you can recreate your entire infrastructure with one command. You can save your files in Git. You can review changes like code. If something breaks, you can roll back to a previous version. It’s the same discipline as software development, but for infrastructure.
Picture: A Git commit history showing changes to infrastructure files.