The hottest Infrastructure as Code Substack posts right now

Different cloud providers have different approaches to Infrastructure-as-Code.
There is a need for tools that can migrate configurations to idiomatic Infrastructure-as-Code templates.
New configuration languages like Pkl are emerging to address frustrations with existing options.

Microsoft Azure experienced a major data breach with hundreds of compromised executive accounts, highlighting security concerns despite its reputation.
Nickel, a language by Tweag, aims to create safe and verified configurations, offering a new tool for developers.
While SSDs have greatly improved in speed, cloud vendors like AWS haven't capitalized on this advancement, possibly due to challenges in leveraging high I/O speeds or maximizing revenue.

Despite the allure of no-code tools for setting up infrastructure easily, current tools often lack important features like versioning and templating, leading to frustration.
Having code, like Infrastructure as Code (IaC) or Configuration as Code, enables better visibility, control, and safety measures in system configuration compared to UI-only tools.
An 'Everything-as-code' approach aims to bring version control to all aspects of development, highlighting the importance of versioning beyond just traditional code.

Consider using a full programming language and framework for IaC if you are a software engineer.
For less skilled programmers, it's better to use IaC tools that utilize DSL/JSON/YAML.
Take advantage of support plans from cloud providers when choosing IaC tools.

AWS made changes to S3 default settings for improved security by blocking public access and custom ACL rules for new buckets.
While enhancing security, the process of creating public buckets has become more complex and requires explicit steps to disable block policies.
The complexities of managing storage like S3 in the cloud call for solutions that balance simplicity, security, and extensibility.

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Transitioning to running your dev environment on the cloud, like Amazon EC2, can offer more versatility and improved performance.
Key components of setting up a development environment on Amazon EC2 include VPC, Autoscaling Group, and EC2 Instance with specific configurations.
Optimizations like adding tailscale, hibernating instances, using vscode for connection, and utilizing reserved instances can further enhance the cloud-based development setup.

The landscape of cloud development tooling is evolving, with a focus on creating abstractions and frameworks to simplify the process of building and deploying distributed cloud applications.
Infrastructure-as-code languages are transitioning towards statically typed programming languages like TypeScript for better developer experiences and easier maintenance.
New frameworks like Eventual, Ampt, Nitric, and others are emerging to abstract away infrastructure complexities, provide end-to-end type-safe development experiences, and offer seamless integrations with existing cloud environments.

Starting a series to explore cloud-native tools like Kubernetes can be an exciting and beneficial learning experience.
Setting up a K3S cluster on a cloud provider using Terraform for infrastructure and Ansible for configuration can be cost-effective and efficient.
Linux systems knowledge, including reading logs, writing scripts, and basic networking, is essential when encountering roadblocks during server setup and configuration.

Consider organizing your CDK lib folder by function instead of service for more efficient development.
Structuring your CDK resources based on function can lead to easier maintenance and deployment of related functionalities.
Explore different organizational patterns in CDK to find what works best for your project and share useful patterns with the community.