Docker Compose is a tool that facilitates the management of multi-container Docker applications. While it’s not strictly a part of traditional IaC, it plays an important role in defining and orchestrating the application’s IaC when working with containerized applications. It simplifies the process of defining and running multi-container Docker applications by allowing you to specify the configuration of these containers in a human-readable YAML file. Docker Compose files can be stored in a VCS such as Git, just as with other IaC code. This enables collaboration among team members, version tracking, and the ability to roll back to previous configurations when needed. Docker Compose promotes the portability of your applications and infrastructure configurations. The same Docker Compose file can be used across different environments (development, testing, and production) with minimal modifications, ensuring consistency and reducing the “it works on my machine” problem. It can be integrated with container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes and Docker Swarm for managing containers in a distributed environment. This allows you to extend the IaC principles to container orchestration and scaling. For more details about the tool and its extensive use cases, please refer to the official website: https://docs.docker.com/compose/.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes (often abbreviated as K8s) is not typically considered an IaC tool in the same way as tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Puppet. Instead, Kubernetes is categorized as an open source container orchestration platform, and it does incorporate some IaC principles and practices in its configuration management approach, such as defining infrastructure configurations in code (YAML), version control, automation, and infrastructure repeatability. Kubernetes manifests specify the desired state of your application infrastructure, and tools such as Kustomize and Helm can further enhance the declarative nature of Kubernetes configuration management. It’s a powerful platform for automating and orchestrating container deployments at scale, and it is often used alongside IaC tools to manage the underlying infrastructure. The open source project is managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). For more details about the tool and its extensive use cases, please refer to the official website: https://kubernetes.io/.
SaltStack (Salt)
SaltStack, also referred to as Salt, is an open source configuration management and orchestration tool. It is unique for its use of remote execution and event-driven automation. Salt employs a master-minion architecture where a master server communicates with minion agents running on target systems. It uses YAML for configuration files, making them human-readable. Salt allows for remote execution of tasks, making it highly efficient for managing large-scale infrastructures. Salt uses an event bus for real-time communication, enabling event-driven automation. It can execute tasks in parallel across multiple systems, improving scalability and performance. Salt is known for its flexibility and ability to adapt to complex infrastructure needs. For more details about the tool and its extensive use cases, please refer to the official website: https://saltproject.io/.
Now that we have learned about quite a few cloud provider-agnostic tools, let us learn briefly about some of the most popular IaC tools/services offered by cloud providers.
