Overview
IaC for networking allows administrators to define the desired state of the network (e.g., VLANs, routing protocols, firewall rules) in code. Tools then compare this code to the actual state of the network and make the necessary changes.
Key Tools
- Terraform: Excellent for provisioning cloud-based and some physical network infrastructure.
- Ansible: Widely used for configuration management and task automation on network devices.
- CloudFormation: Specific to AWS infrastructure.
Benefits
- Consistency: Ensures that all environments (dev, test, prod) are configured identically.
- Auditability: Every change is tracked in version control.
- Scalability: Easily replicate complex network architectures.