Pipelines for infrastructure as code

使用持续交付流水线来编排软件的发布过程已经成为主流观念。CI/CD工具能够被用来测试服务器的配置（如Chef cookbooks，Puppet modules和Ansible playbooks），服务器的镜像构建（如Packer），环境的生成（如Terraform，CloudFormation）和环境间的集成。将流水线用于基础设施即代码，可以让你在变更应用于运行环境（包括开发和测试环境）之前就发现错误。它们还提供了CD/CD代理（Agent）而非独立工作站的方式，来确保基础设施工具运行的一致性。我们团队在项目中采用这种技术取得了良好的效果。

The use of continuous delivery pipelines to orchestrate the release process for software has become a mainstream concept. However, automatically testing changes to infrastructure code isn’t as widely understood. Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) tools can be used to test server configuration (e.g., Chef cookbooks, Puppet modules, Ansible playbooks), server image building (e.g., Packer), environment provisioning (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation) and integration of environments. The use of pipelines for infrastructure as code enables errors to be found before changes are applied to operational environments — including environments used for development and testing. They also offer a way to ensure that infrastructure tooling is run consistently, from CI/CD agents, as opposed to being run from individual workstations. Some challenges remain, however, such as the longer feedback loops associated with standing up containers and virtual machines. Still, we've found this to be a valuable technique.

The use of continuous delivery pipelines to orchestrate the release process for software has become a mainstream concept. However, automatically testing changes to infrastructure code isn’t as widely understood. Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) tools can be used to test server configuration (e.g., Chef cookbooks, Puppet modules, Ansible playbooks), server image building (e.g., Packer), environment provisioning (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation) and integration of environments. The use of pipelines for infrastructure as code enables errors to be found before changes are applied to operational environments — including environments used for development and testing. They also offer a way to ensure that infrastructure tooling is run consistently, from CI/CD agents, as opposed to being run from individual workstations. Some challenges remain, however, such as the longer feedback loops associated with standing up containers and virtual machines. Still, we've found this to be a valuable technique.