Declarative vs Programmatic Infrastructure as Code

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Switzerland May 22, 2025 

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Declarative vs Programmatic  Infrastructure as Code Jakub Gaj Cloud Solution Architect @ Danske Bank  Copenhagen, Denmark Switzerland Jakub Gaj AWS Community Builder AWS New Voices Speaker

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Rapid prototyping of cloud solutions Interactive demos for less technical audiences I absolutely 🧡 ClickOps 😎 Experimenting with new AWS services & integrations Hot fixes in pre-production accounts Switzerland

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“Infrastructure as Code is the practice of provisioning and managing infrastructure using code, as opposed to doing it interactively   or with non-code automation tools.” Kief Morris Infrastructure as Code, 2nd Edition  (O’Reilly Media) ‣ Fundamental differences ‣ Optimal use cases ‣ Framework considerations ‣ Best practices Declarative & programmatic approach:

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Evolution of IT infrastructure Iron Age Virtual Age Bare Metal in Data Centers Virtualization of Compute, Storage, Networking Cloud Providers (Cloud Services) AI Services Cloud Era AI Era

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Milestones of Everything as Code ‣ Bash Shell (BSH) ‣ Korn Shell (KSH) ‣ Distributed Shell (DSH) ‣ Batch ‣ PowerShell ‣ Perl ‣ Python Shell Scripting ‣ CFEngine ‣ Puppet ‣ Chef ‣ Ansible ‣ Salt (SaltStack)    Configuration as Code ‣ AWS CloudFormation ‣ HashiCorp Terraform ‣ Microsoft Azure  Resource Manager ‣ Microsoft Bicep ‣ Google Cloud  Deployment Manager  Infrastructure as Code

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Milestones of Everything as Code ‣ Docker Compose ‣ Kubernetes Templating ‣ AWS Serverless  Application Model ‣ Serverless Framework      Containers & FaaS ‣ AWS CDK ‣ AWS PDK ‣ CDK for Terraform ‣ Pulumi IaC Engine ‣ SST Framework    Cloud Development Kits ‣ AWS CodeWhisperer ‣ AWS Q Developer ‣ Pulumi AI & Copilot ‣ GitHub Copilot ‣ Anthropic Claude Code ‣ OpenAI Codex ‣ Cursor AI  AI-Assisted Development

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Core aspects of declarative IaC Domain-specific languages  (CF, HCL, Bicep) Limited built-in  logic capabilities Code readability  (WYSIWYG) Can become lengthy for complex infra Focus on infra layer   (shared platforms) Better suited for low-level resources definition

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Popular declarative frameworks AWS  CloudFormation AWS Serverless Application Model Serverless Framework HashiCorp Terraform CE Linux Foundation OpenTofu Microsoft   Bicep (ARM) Google Cloud Deployment Manager AWS Amplify

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Core aspects of programmatic IaC Standard programming languages  (Python, TypeScript) Advanced logic:  conditional statements, loops, etc Custom abstractions:  patterns, constructs, packages Integrations with existing development workflows Focus on app layer (business logic) Better suited for high-level app-centric deployments

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Popular programmatic frameworks Pulumi Engine SST Framework CDK for Terraform AWS Cloud Development Kit AWS Project Development Kit

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State management: backend & locking AWS CloudFormation Pulumi Engine Google DM Microsoft ARM Terraform Terraform  Cloud / HCP Terraform  Enterprise Pulumi Cloud Spacelift Remote Storage Cloud Service Enterprise IaC Platforms

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Demo time! AWS Cloud Development Kit AWS Cloud Development Kit CDK Constructs,   Patterns, Solutions CloudFormation  IaC Generator Compliance scans  with NagPacks AWS  CloudFormation

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Some best practices Infrastructure, Configuration, Security Policies, Documentation, Diagrams Test Driven Development, Unit / Integration Tests (Automated Test Suites) Group components into deployable stacks, separate stateful / stateless resources Define everything as code (apply SDLC processes) Continuously test and deliver all work in progress Build small pieces that can be changed independently

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Key takeaways Define lifecycle policies to protect resources from being accidentally deleted Resource Protection Use linters & scanners  to enforce best practices  (Snyk, Chekov, cdk-nag) Static Code Analysis Use CDK Constructs, Terraform Modules, Pulumi Packages, etc Reusable Patterns Use CI/CD pipelines to deliver any changes to infrastructure Continuous Deployments Implement regular drift detection checks & remediation actions Drift Detection Implement automated rollback mechanisms for failed deployments Automated Rollbacks

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🇬🇧 Thank you! 🇵🇱 Dziękuję! 🇨🇭 Vilen Dank! Let’s connect! Social Profiles Tech Blogs GitHub Repos Resources / Slides Jakub Gaj