What does Infrastructure as Code (IaC) allow DevOps teams to achieve?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice that enables DevOps teams to automate the provisioning and management of infrastructure resources through code. This approach allows teams to define their infrastructure in a declarative manner, meaning that they can specify what the desired state of the infrastructure should be, rather than focusing on the steps needed to reach that state.

By using IaC, DevOps teams can achieve several important benefits: consistency in environment setup, faster deployment times, and reduced human error, as the code can be version-controlled just like application code. It facilitates the creation of reproducible environments and helps in managing different environments (such as development, testing, and production) effortlessly.

Unlike manual intervention in resource management, which can lead to inconsistencies and errors, IaC promotes automation and standardization. The focus on hardware development only does not encapsulate the broader scope of IaC, which extends to the management of cloud resources. Similarly, restricting access to resource provisioning runs counter to the principles of IaC, which often aims to provide quicker access and scalability. Therefore, choosing automated provisioning and management of infrastructure captures the true essence and purpose of Infrastructure as Code within DevOps practices.