What is Infrastructure as Code, and how can ISVs leverage the benefits?

Cloud technology is slowly but surely taking over the modern business world as businesses of all sizes have begun to realise the long-term potential of cloud migration. 

We are seeing a sharp rise in the number of cloud service providers, such as Microsoft Azure, which supports the manual configuration of their cloud services. Moving your business operations and processes to the Cloud is no easy task. During the migration process, you must ensure constant data availability and stability. Depending on your needs and the size of your data stores, it can be a lengthy process. 

While you might think that all you have to do is migrate to the Cloud, managing and provisioning data centres in the post-production and migration processes is a significant challenge. After all, you must ensure that your data centres are consolidated and managed automatically through Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This model codifies everything in your infrastructure to bring numerous benefits to your growing business. With all this in mind, let’s take a look at what IaC is and how it can help your company thrive.

What is Infrastructure as Code (IAC)?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the technical process of provisioning, configuring, and managing IT Infrastructure through code instead of through manual processes. 

Until the creation of IaC, infrastructure changes had to be handled and managed through extensive manual work, requiring rigorous manual operations that take tremendous time and effort, ultimately impacting the overall costs of IT maintenance and development.

Infrastructure as Code allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to speed up their processes and improve their software delivery and management practices. 

To sum it up, infrastructure as code tools enable software development companies and DevOps teams to quickly and effectively manage the tech infrastructure simply by configuring files.

There are many benefits IaC tools can bring independent software vendors. Here are some of the most prominent:

1. Speed: Infrastructure as Code allows faster execution when configuring infrastructure by utilising and running a script. IaC also gives improved visibility that helps different teams to work rapidly and flawlessly in a collaborative manner.
2. Cost savings: By using IaC tools, independent software vendors will no longer need to hire more employees and thus save enormous resources and money. In addition, removing the manual component enables developers and independent software vendors to refocus their efforts on other critical tasks that bring greater value. 
3. Reduces risk of human error: As infrastructure as code is based on automation algorithms, it eliminates even the little requirement of human efforts required in setting up the IT infrastructure. Doing so removes the risk associated with human error, improving reliability and reducing the likelihood of downtime.
4. DevOps testing: Infrastructure as Code allows DevOps teams to test applications in production-like environments early in the development cycle. DevOps teams can set up their desired testing environment on demand so the software or application can be rapidly deployed and tested, granting greater flexibility in DevOps to speed up the lifecycle of software development.
5. Configuration consistency: IaC completely standardises the infrastructure setup, reducing the possibility of errors or inconsistencies. This will reduce the chances of any incompatibility issues with your infrastructure and help your applications run more smoothly. Independent software vendors (ISVs) need unmatched speed, security, and scalability – and infrastructure as code grants it to them. With IaC tools, you can unlock the full potential of cloud computing, reduce risks and errors, improve your IT infrastructure management speed, and bring greater agility to the software development lifecycle.

Spanish Point’s Solution

Spanish Point Technologies are proud Gold Certified Microsoft partners that have assisted more than 60 ISVs in migrating to Azure. We specialise in Microsoft consultancy and focus on migrating ISV solutions to Azure at scale and helping independent software vendors already using Azure to modernise their solution.

Microsoft Azure offers excellent opportunities for ISVs and digital disruptors to grow their business at scale, yet it requires manual implementation, which is rife with risks and challenges. With our SMART AIM software library, they can grow their business at scale at pace.

SMART AIM Library is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipeline automation template pack for the most common Azure PaaS and IaaS components used by modern ISVs. The automation template pack is a library of scripts, ARM templates, and other artefacts, with detailed instructions on parameterisation so that ISVs to quickly assemble their DevOps pipelines and automated instantiate their environments. It consists of automation templates, with continuous updates to the library for the most popular and latest components added or updated.

Final thoughts

Infrastructure as code has the potential to become a real game-changer for independent software developers and DevOps teams. It takes cloud computing to its fullest potential and frees developers and other professionals from performing manual, error-prone tasks.

Want to learn more?