As we unveil our second annual State of Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Report, it's impossible not to reflect on the whirlwind year that has characterized the IaC landscape. Engineers have found themselves navigating a sea of new tools and facing unexpected shifts in established favorites. Among the standout events is the license change of Terraform, a cornerstone of the IaC ecosystem, which prompted the birth of OpenTofu, a newly minted open-source Terraform fork under the Linux Foundation's umbrella.
Looking beyond these headline events, our report dives deep into the factors shaping IaC use. Cloud complexity emerges as a significant challenge, with managing a growing number of accounts, clouds, and IaC tools contributing to poor visibility of the cloud footprint. The struggle to detect and remediate configuration drift underscores the ongoing maintenance challenge, even as AI-driven solutions offer promise.
The landscape of IaC frameworks is in flux, with emerging trends like OpenTofu and Crossplane directly influencing adoption. Notably, established players like Terraform and CloudFormation face a decline in usage as users explore alternatives. The trend towards codifying not just cloud resources but all aspects of IT infrastructure reflects a broader shift towards managing everything as code, promising greater security and automation capabilities.
While the benefits of IaC are clear—consistency, reliability, velocity, and more—challenges persist. Retrofitting legacy assets, ensuring adequate IaC coverage, and addressing knowledge gaps remain top concerns. Multi-cloud environments exacerbate these challenges, leading to a complex mish-mash of tools for many engineers.
In this ever-evolving landscape, the use of IaC is well established, even as flavors and methods change. While challenges persist, the benefits of IaC in driving reliability, reducing risk, and optimizing costs remain undeniable. As users adapt to changing frameworks and embrace new tools, the journey towards a well-managed cloud continues, propelled by innovation and adaptation.
Download the report here.
(New to IaC? Check out this brief Primer.)
