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Why use IAC for Databases?

One of the things that initially confused me about using IAC for databases is the following. Why would we use IAC to create a database in the first place? It's not like other resources that can be generated and deleted on the fly, like API's and Lambdas. Databases need to be persistent.

Here's why provisioning databases with code is beneficial, even when data persistence is a requirement:

1. Consistency and Reproducibility:

   • Eliminate Human Error: Manual creation is prone to mistakes. With IaC, you ensure that the infrastructure is set up the same way every time.
   • Environment Parity: Easily replicate the same database setup across development, staging, and production environments.

2. Version Control and Auditing:

   • Track Changes: IaC allows you to keep your infrastructure configurations in version control systems like Git. This makes it easy to track changes over time.
   • Audit Trails: You can see who changed what and when, aiding in compliance and auditing processes.

3. Automation and Efficiency:

   • Rapid Deployment: Automate the provisioning process, reducing the time it takes to set up or scale your infrastructure.
   • Integration with CI/CD Pipelines: Incorporate infrastructure changes into your deployment pipelines for seamless updates.

4. Disaster Recovery and High Availability:

   • Automated Recovery: In the event of a failure, you can quickly recreate your infrastructure in a different region or account using the same code.
   • Backup and Restore Automation: While the data is persistent, IaC can manage automated backups and restorations as part of the provisioning process.

5. Scalability:

   • Easily Modify Resources: Need a bigger database instance? Change a parameter in your code and re-run it to update the infrastructure.
   • Parameterization: Use variables to adjust configurations dynamically across different environments or scales.

6. Prevent Configuration Drift:

   • Maintain Alignment: Over time, manually managed resources can drift from their intended configurations. IaC ensures the infrastructure stays aligned with the codebase.
   • Validation: Tools often provide ways to validate that the actual infrastructure matches the code, alerting you to discrepancies.

7. Collaboration:

   • Shared Knowledge Base: Teams can collaborate on infrastructure code just like application code, improving overall team efficiency.
   • Onboarding: New team members can get up to speed faster by reading the code rather than sifting through manual setup documents.

8. Security and Compliance:

   • Defined Security Posture: Security groups, network configurations, and access controls are all defined in code, reducing the risk of misconfigurations.
   • Compliance Automation: Easier to enforce compliance standards programmatically.

9. Cost Management:

   • Resource Tracking: Keep track of all resources provisioned, making it easier to identify and eliminate unused or underutilized resources.
   • Automated Teardown: For non-production environments, automate the teardown of resources when they're no longer needed to save costs.

10. Flexibility in Data Management:

    • Data Persistence Strategies: While the database instance is provisioned with IaC, data migration and seeding scripts can be integrated into the deployment process.
    • Separate Concerns: Manage the lifecycle of the database schema and data independently from the database infrastructure.

Sample

Here is a sample instantiation for a PostgreSQL database.

import * as pulumi from '@pulumi/pulumi';
import * as aws from '@pulumi/aws';

const config = new pulumi.Config();

// these values should be moved to a secret manager
const db_username = config.require('db_username');
const db_password = config.require('db_password');
const db_name = config.require('db_name');

export const sampleDataDB = new aws.rds.Instance('sample-data-postgre-sql', {
  allocatedStorage: 10,
  dbName: db_name,
  engine: 'postgres',
  engineVersion: '16.3',
  instanceClass: aws.rds.InstanceType.T4G_Micro,
  username: db_username,
  password: db_password,
  parameterGroupName: 'default.postgres16',
  skipFinalSnapshot: true,
  publiclyAccessible: true,
  port: 5432,
});

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