What is Infrastructure as Code? - Definition & Meaning

Definition

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning IT infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files rather than manual processes. This makes infrastructure reproducible, version-controlled, and automatable.

Technical explanation

IaC tools follow two approaches: declarative (you describe the desired end state) and imperative (you describe the steps to reach that state). Terraform by HashiCorp is the market leader with HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) for declarative infrastructure definitions. Terraform manages state in a state file that tracks the current infrastructure state and calculates a change plan via terraform plan. Pulumi differentiates by using standard programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Go) instead of a DSL, simplifying conditional logic and reuse. AWS CloudFormation is the native IaC tool for AWS with JSON/YAML templates. GitOps combines IaC with Git as the single source of truth: infrastructure changes are reviewed via pull requests and automatically applied by tools like ArgoCD or Flux. Modules and stacks promote reuse: common patterns are defined once and deployed multiple times. Drift detection signals when actual infrastructure diverges from the desired state. Sensitive outputs and remote state backends (S3, Azure Blob) protect sensitive data.

How MG Software applies this

At MG Software, we manage all cloud infrastructure through code. We use Terraform for provisioning databases, networks, and Kubernetes clusters. All infrastructure changes go through code review and are automatically rolled out via our CI/CD pipeline. This guarantees that client environments are consistent and reproducible.

Practical examples

• A startup using Terraform to provision a complete AWS environment in a single command: VPC, subnets, RDS database, ECS cluster, and Application Load Balancer.
• A DevOps team using Pulumi with TypeScript to conditionally define staging and production environments within the same codebase.
• An enterprise implementing GitOps where all infrastructure changes are reviewed via pull requests and ArgoCD automatically enforces the desired state on the Kubernetes cluster.

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