Best Practices for Managing Infrastructure as Code with Version Control

Are you tired of manually configuring and managing your infrastructure? Are you tired of version control problems and communication issues among team members? Managing infrastructure as code (IaC) with version control can help you optimize your infrastructure management workflow and reduce errors.

In this article, we’ll provide best practices for managing infrastructure as code with version control. We’ll cover the steps you need to take to implement infrastructure as code with version control and how to manage changes to your infrastructure codebase.

Before we dive into the best practices, let’s briefly go over what infrastructure as code and version control are.

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Infrastructure as code (IaC) is a practice of automating the process of infrastructure management using code. Instead of manually configuring infrastructure through command-line interfaces (CLIs) or web-based portals, infrastructure can be described with code. This brings several benefits such as version control, consistency, and repeatability.

What is Version Control?

Version control is a system for managing changes to a source codebase. It helps developers collaborate on code and track changes over time. Version control provides developers with the ability to go back in time and compare different versions of the codebase. This is critical for managing infrastructure as code, as it supports collaboration and improves the ability to track changes and testing.

Best Practices for Managing Infrastructure as Code with Version Control

Here are the best practices for managing infrastructure as code with version control:

1. Use a centralized Git repository

The first step is to use a centralized Git repository to store your codebase. This improves collaboration by providing a central location where team members can access and contribute to the codebase. Moreover, it provides version control features such as version history and branching.

When it comes to choosing a Git repository service, there are many options available - GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. You can choose any Git repository service that suits your needs.

2. Organize your codebase

Organize your infrastructure codebase into manageable modules. This helps in managing your codebase more efficiently and helps prevent dependencies from causing issues. Additionally, breaking up your codebase into modules makes it easier for team members to work on different parts of the infrastructure.

3. Define standards

Create a set of standards for writing code. This includes naming conventions, directory structure, and formatting guidelines. By defining standards, you can ensure that everyone on the team is using the same conventions which makes IaC easier to read and maintain.

4. Use a pre-commit hook

Using a pre-commit hook is highly recommended as it helps enforce code standards. By adding pre-commit hooks in your Git repository, the code is validated before each commit. For example, you can add checks for syntax, formatting or coding style.

5. Use a pull request workflow

Using a pull request (PR) workflow is beneficial as it helps manage changes to codebase more carefully. A PR workflow allows team members to review changes, add comments, and suggest improvements. This results in better code quality and fewer errors, and increases collaboration by allowing team members to contribute to code review.

6. Use version tags

Incrementally create version tags whenever you make changes to your infrastructure codebase. This will allow you to quickly roll back changes if needed, and help you keep track of different versions of your infrastructure.

7. Use automated testing

Testing is a crucial aspect of managing infrastructure with IaC. Automated testing ensures that your infrastructure codebase is working correctly and components are consistent. By automating testing, you can catch errors early, which helps save time and resources. Using testing frameworks like Terratest, ServerSpec, or Kitchen can help automate testing.

8. Use Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

Using Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) workflows is highly recommended as it can help automate rolling out changes to your infrastructure codebase. CI/CD is a practice of continuously testing and deploying code changes. By using CI/CD, you can ensure that your infrastructure is up-to-date with the latest changes, increases collaboration and reduces deployment errors.

9. Maintaining Code quality

Maintaining code quality is essential when it comes to managing infrastructure as code. Use static code analysis tools/tools like infrastructure linting (for Terraform use tflint), Snyk for security auditing, and Sonarqube for code/document analysis; this will help ensure the quality and security of your codebase.

10. Documentation

Documenting infrastructure codebase is critical, especially as it evolves over time, and different people contribute to it. The documentation should outline the purpose, dependencies, and expected behavior of the infrastructure, as well as any prerequisites for running or testing it.

Conclusion

In summary, managing infrastructure as code with version control brings many benefits such as version control, consistency, and repeatability. By following these best practices, you can more effectively manage your codebase and avoid problems. Implementing these practices will make your codebase more reliable, easier to maintain, and easier to collaborate on. We hope this article was useful and will help you optimize your infrastructure management workflow. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Good luck!

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