You Probably Aren’t as Advanced in Automation as You Think

While many organizations feel confident in their automation capabilities, research shows a significant gap between perception and reality—less than one-third of those who believe they’ve mastered automation are actually putting best practices into action. This highlights the importance of hands-on experimentation, not just to implement tools, but to truly understand and refine how automation fits into your workflows.

What is infrastructure automation?

Infrastructure automation refers to using scripts or code to set up and manage infrastructure (like servers, databases, networks, etc.) so you don’t have to do it manually every time. Tools such as Terraform, OpenTofu, AWS CloudFormation, and Pulumi are commonly used to implement IaC and automate infrastructure provisioning.

In IaC, infrastructure automation is achieved by writing code, typically in formats like YAML, JSON, or domain-specific languages such as HCL (used by Terraform), to define the configuration of resources like servers, networks, databases, and more.

For instance, a simple Terraform script can spin up a virtual machine or configure an entire cloud environment with just a few lines of code. That little Terraform snippet will spin up a web server without you clicking through AWS manually:

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami           = "ami-123456"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

Note: In a real-world deployment, you'd typically include additional configurations like key pairs, VPC settings, and security groups.

Key benefits of infrastructure automation:

• Speed: Infrastructure can be deployed or modified in minutes, drastically reducing setup time.
• Consistency: Eliminates manual errors by ensuring environments are configured identically every time.
• Scalability: Makes it easy to scale infrastructure up or down based on demand.
• Version control: Infrastructure configurations are stored as code, allowing changes to be tracked, audited, and rolled back if necessary.
• Efficiency: Frees up engineers from repetitive tasks, letting them focus on more strategic work.
• Reliability: Automated environments reduce the chances of configuration drift and environment-specific bugs.

How to get started with infrastructure automation

Here’s a simple roadmap to help you begin:

Step 1: Learn the basics of DevOps and IaC

Start by understanding the core concepts of DevOps and IaC. Get familiar with terms like provisioning, configuration management, CI/CD, version control, and cloud infrastructure. Knowing why automation is important helps you understand how to use it effectively.

Step 2: Choose the right tools

Pick tools based on your environment and use case. Some popular categories and tools include:

• Provisioning tools: Terraform (cloud-agnostic, widely used), OpenTofu (an open-source version of Terraform), AWS CloudFormation (specific to AWS)
• Configuration management tools: Ansible (agentless, easy to learn), Chef or Puppet (more complex, powerful for larger systems)
• Containerization and orchestration: Docker for packaging applications and Kubernetes for managing containers at scale

Step 3: Learn a tool hands-on

Start with one tool (Terraform or Ansible is a great choice for beginners). Work on small, simple projects like:

• Creating a virtual machine on AWS or Azure
• Installing NGINX on a server with Ansible
• Deploying a simple app using Terraform

There are plenty of tutorials, GitHub examples, and online courses that walk you through real-world scenarios.

Step 4: Use version control (Git)

Store your infrastructure code in Git (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket). This enables collaboration, change tracking, and rollback capabilities, just like you would with application code.

Step 5: Test and validate

Use tools to validate your infrastructure code before applying it to reduce the risk of breaking things when deploying changes. For example:

• terraform plan to preview changes
• ansible --check to dry-run a playbook

Also, consider using automated testing tools like Terratest, Testinfra, or kitchen-terraform to ensure infrastructure behaves as expected.

Step 6: Integrate with CI/CD pipelines

Once you're comfortable, integrate your infrastructure automation into a CI/CD pipeline using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Spacelift. Depending on your team structure, this allows you to deploy infrastructure as part of your application release process or in a separate infrastructure delivery pipeline.

Step 7: Practice with cloud providers

Get hands-on with cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Most IaC tools work best in cloud environments, and cloud providers often offer free tiers to experiment with.

Challenges in implementing infrastructure automation

Despite its many benefits, infrastructure automation is not without hurdles. Organizations may encounter both technical and organizational challenges during implementation.

1. Skill gaps and learning curve

Infrastructure automation tools often require a deep understanding of cloud platforms, infrastructure architecture, and declarative syntax and DevOps principles. Teams new to these tools may struggle with the initial complexity, leading to slower adoption and potential misconfiguration.

2. Security and access management

Automating infrastructure involves managing sensitive credentials, API keys, and permissions. If not handled properly, this can expose systems to security vulnerabilities. Ensure secure storage of secrets (e.g., using HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager) and enforce the principle of least privilege. These are critical but often overlooked components.

3. Tool selection and integration complexity

There’s a wide range of tools available, each with its own use case and integration requirements. Choosing the right one and ensuring it fits smoothly with existing CI/CD pipelines, cloud providers, and monitoring systems can be time-consuming and technically challenging.

What are the next steps?

Once infrastructure automation is successfully implemented, the next steps involve optimizing and scaling your automation strategy. This includes integrating infrastructure provisioning into your CI/CD pipelines to enable fully automated deployments, improving monitoring and alerting for better visibility, and __refining security practices__such as managing secrets and enforcing role-based access.

You should also focus on modularizing your infrastructure code for reusability and maintainability, as well as establishing clear documentation and workflows for your team. As your infrastructure grows, consider incorporating tools for cost management, compliance checks, and drift detection to ensure long-term efficiency and stability.

Infrastructure automation is not a one-time project, it’s a continuous process of refinement, scaling, and alignment with evolving business and technical needs.