What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) uses configuration files to define, deploy, and manage cloud resources, replacing manual console operations. This approach automates infrastructure delivery, improves consistency, and makes changes traceable.
Why use IaC
How IaC works
IaC tools use configuration files to describe infrastructure and interact with cloud APIs to create and configure resources automatically.
Consider deploying an application across development, testing, and production environments, each with an ECS instance, an RDS database, and an SLB load balancer. Manually creating these resources means repeating the same steps three times with no guarantee of identical configurations. With IaC, a single configuration file with different environment variables creates three identical environments. To scale to hundreds of applications, convert configurations into reusable templates, inject variables, and integrate them into your CI/CD pipeline.
The basic IaC workflow:
-
Define infrastructure: Write a configuration file using a configuration language or programming language to describe the required resources and their dependencies.
-
Automate deployment: The IaC tool reads the configuration and calls cloud APIs to create and configure resources.
-
Manage changes: When the configuration changes, the tool detects differences and incrementally updates the infrastructure.
Benefits of IaC
-
Reusability: Use one configuration file to create identical development, testing, and production environments.
-
Automation: Automate resource creation and management. Integrate directly into CI/CD pipelines.
-
Process-oriented: Treat infrastructure changes like code: review updates, validate automatically, and manage through defined workflows.
-
Auditability: Store configurations in version control for complete change history, auditing, and rollbacks.
How to choose an IaC tool
Alibaba Cloud supports multiple IaC tools that differ in configuration methods, integration depth, and use cases:
|
Authoring method |
Tool |
Use case |
|
Graphical interface. No coding required. |
Quickly try IaC. Visually generate and execute configurations. |
|
|
HCL configuration language |
Multi-cloud management, team collaboration, production environments. |
|
|
JSON/YAML templates |
Alibaba Cloud-only environments. Deep integration with the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. |
|
|
General-purpose programming languages |
Your development team prefers Java, Python, Go, or TypeScript. |
|
|
YAML Playbook |
Configuration management, application deployment, automated O&M. |
Other tools like Pulumi also support Alibaba Cloud but with less comprehensive coverage. Choose from the tools listed above. If you are new to IaC, start with Terraform.
IaC tools supported by Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud integrates with the following IaC tools:
|
Tool |
Description |
Learn more |
|
Terraform Explorer |
A visual tool built on Terraform that generates and executes configurations automatically. No installation, configuration writing, or state management required. |
|
|
Terraform (recommended) |
Open-source declarative tool from HashiCorp. Uses HCL to define cloud and on-premises resources with version control, template reuse, and automated workflows. Alibaba Cloud is one of Terraform’s four official major cloud providers with regular provider updates. |
|
|
ROS |
Alibaba Cloud-native deployment service (free). Uses JSON or YAML templates to define resources. Includes a visual interface, template library, one-click deployment, and managed Terraform templates. |
|
|
CDKTF |
Uses Java, Go, Python, or TypeScript to auto-generate Terraform configurations and run deployments. Combines declarative automation with imperative flexibility. |
|
|
Terraform Cloud / Enterprise |
HashiCorp's enterprise Terraform product for organization-level infrastructure management. |
|
|
Pulumi |
Defines infrastructure with general-purpose programming languages. Alibaba Cloud coverage is less complete than Terraform’s. Prefer CDKTF. |
|
|
Ansible |
Agentless tool for automated O&M, configuration management, and application deployment. No client installation required on target machines. |
FAQ
Do I need programming experience to use IaC?
No. Declarative tools like Terraform use HCL, a simple configuration language that requires no programming experience. Terraform Explorer offers a graphical interface for code-free configuration. Only CDKTF and Pulumi require programming languages like Java or Python.
Can I use the same IaC configuration files across cloud platforms?
It depends on the tool. Terraform and Pulumi support multi-cloud deployments, but each cloud has its own provider and resource definitions, so configurations cannot be reused directly. Modular project structures and workflow logic can still be shared. ROS works only with Alibaba Cloud.
Is Terraform free?
The Terraform CLI is free. Terraform Cloud offers free and paid tiers. Terraform Enterprise is a paid product. Terraform itself incurs no cost on Alibaba Cloud, but cloud resources you create are billed at standard Alibaba Cloud rates.