Day Two Cloud 135: Infrastructure As Code Should Foster Infrastructure As Collaboration

On today’s Day Two Cloud we examine why Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is about more than the just the tools that enable it. Guest Rob Hirschfeld puts forth the notion that while the tools are there for a reason, those tools have to serve a purpose. He argues that IaC is about trying to build automation that’s code-like, but it’s too easy for individuals to focus on their specific coding language or domain and forget that IaC should support collaboration, re-use, and efficient operations. You have to look at how the tools foster efficiency and support teams, or you miss the whole point. There’s also a bit of conversation here about culture: that is, how technology and infrastructure will affect culture and vice-versa. Rob reached out to us after hearing episode 127 on avoiding IaC pitfalls. Rob is CEO of RackN. We discuss: * Ensuring the tools you use or build enforce the team behaviors you want to see in operations * Eliminating one-off solutions to problems * How IaC is about collaboration * IaC, CI/CD, and pipelines * Day two challenges of IaC * More Takeaways: Embrace the heterogeneity Consider the IaC pipeline Collaboration is key Sponsor: StrongDM StrongDM is secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. StrongDM proxies connections between your infrastructure and Sysadmins, giving your IT team auditable, policy-driven, IaC-configurable access to whatever they need, wherever they are. Find out more at StrongDM.com/packetpushers. Tech Bytes: Singtel Stay tuned for a sponsored Tech Bytes podcast with Singtel about common misconceptions customers have about connecting their private networks to the public cloud. For instance, SD-WAN might seem like a simple option: just spin up an SD-WAN end point in your VPC and off you go. That’s fine for a single region in a single country, but things get complicated fast when you’re talking about hundreds of sites across different countries. Show Links: Day Two Cloud 127: Avoiding Infrastructure As Code (IaC) Pitfalls – Packet Pushers @zehicle – Rob Hirschfeld on Twitter RackN.com Cloud2030 Podcast Transcript: [00:00:01.150] – Ethan Sponsor StrongDM is secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. StrongDM proxies connections between your infrastructure and Sysadmins, giving your IT team auditable, policy driven IaC configurable access to whatever they need, wherever they are. Find out [email protected] slash PacketPushers. [00:00:26.130] – Ned Welcome to Day Two Cloud. Today we are expanding on a concept that we kind of dug into a few episodes ago with Tim Davis infrastructure as code pitfalls trends. But this time we got a different perspective from Rob Hirschfeld. He’s the CEO of RackN, and he reached out to us and said, hey, you didn’t talk about teams and collaboration. I feel like that’s a key component of what goes into a successful infrastructure as code practice. What jumped out to you in the conversation, Ethan? [00:00:56.550] – Ethan Well, it’s not just another culture conversatio...