Infrastructure as code (IaC) adoption happens in stages. Understanding where you are helps plan where to go next.
Level 1: Scripts
Bash scripts and manual runbooks. Better than clicking in consoles, but fragile and hard to maintain.
Level 2: Configuration Management
Tools like Ansible or Chef. Idempotent, but still focused on configuration rather than infrastructure.
Level 3: Declarative IaC
Terraform, ARM templates, CloudFormation. Declare desired state, let the tool figure out how to get there.
resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
name = "example-resources"
location = "eastus"
}
Level 4: Platform Abstraction
Higher-level constructs that hide cloud complexity:
new ApplicationStack(this, 'MyApp', {
runtime: Runtime.NODE_18,
scaling: { min: 2, max: 10 }
});
Level 5: Self-Service
Developers request infrastructure through APIs or portals. Platforms provision automatically within guardrails.