Infrastructure
149 items tagged with "infrastructure"
Best Practices3
Terraform Module Design Patterns
Guidelines for writing reusable, versioned, and documented Terraform modules.
Immutable Infrastructure
An operations model where servers and components are never modified after deployment; changes ship as freshly built, versioned replacements rather than in-place edits.
Capacity Planning
Forecasting future demand and provisioning resources ahead of need, combining organic growth, launches, and headroom to avoid both outages and waste.
Patterns6
Sidecar Pattern
Deploy auxiliary components alongside primary services for cross-cutting concerns
External Configuration Store
Move configuration out of deployment packages into a central external store shared and updated across application instances.
Fail Safe
Designs a system so that when a component fails it falls into a safe, known default state rather than an unsafe or undefined one.
Heartbeat
Has a component emit periodic signals so observers can detect when it has failed or become unreachable within a bounded time.
Health Check
Exposes endpoints that report whether a service is alive and ready to serve, enabling orchestrators and load balancers to route traffic only to healthy instances.
Watchdog
An independent supervisor that monitors a system or process and takes corrective action — restart, alert, or failover — when it stops responding.
Anti-Patterns4
Snowflake Server
A server hand-configured over time into a unique, irreproducible state that no one can recreate, document, or safely replace.
Configuration Drift
Environments that should be identical gradually diverge as undocumented manual changes accumulate, breaking reproducibility and causing inconsistent behavior.
No Infrastructure as Code
Running infrastructure without any code-based definition, so it cannot be versioned, reviewed, reproduced, or recovered systematically.
Pets vs Cattle (Pet Servers)
Treating individual servers as irreplaceable pets that are named, nurtured, and manually healed, instead of disposable cattle that are replaced on failure.
Tutorials17
Setting Up a Local Kubernetes Cluster
Create a local Kubernetes development environment with kind or minikube
Infrastructure as Code with Terraform on AWS
Define and provision AWS infrastructure using Terraform
How to provision an Amazon EKS cluster and deploy a workload
Create a managed EKS cluster with managed node groups using eksctl, then deploy and verify an application.
How to provision an Azure AKS cluster and deploy a workload
Create a managed AKS cluster with the Azure CLI, connect kubectl, and deploy an application.
How to provision a Google GKE cluster and deploy a workload
Create a GKE cluster with the gcloud CLI, connect kubectl, and deploy an application with autoscaling.
How to design a VPC with public and private subnets on AWS
Build a secure AWS VPC with public and private subnets, NAT, and route tables using Terraform.
How to provision a managed PostgreSQL database on Cloud SQL
Provision, secure, and connect to a managed PostgreSQL instance on Google Cloud SQL with private IP.
How to configure EC2 Auto Scaling groups on AWS
Set up an EC2 Auto Scaling group with a launch template, target tracking policies, and health checks.
How to set up cost budgets and alerts on AWS
Create AWS Budgets with thresholds and notifications to catch cost overruns before the bill arrives.
How to provision an AWS VPC with Terraform
Write Terraform configuration to create a VPC, subnets, and routing, then apply and destroy it safely.
How to write a reusable Terraform module
Package infrastructure into a Terraform module with variables and outputs so it can be reused across environments.
How to configure Terraform remote state with locking
Store Terraform state in a remote backend with state locking so a team can collaborate without corrupting state.
How to manage infrastructure with OpenTofu
Install OpenTofu and run the init, plan, and apply workflow as a drop-in, open-source alternative to Terraform.
How to provision cloud infrastructure with Pulumi
Define cloud resources in a general-purpose programming language using Pulumi and deploy them with up and destroy.
How to write an Ansible playbook to configure servers
Build an inventory and an idempotent Ansible playbook to install and configure software across multiple servers.
How to set up self-hosted CI runners
Register and harden self-hosted runners to run CI jobs on your own hardware for performance and network access.
How to scan infrastructure-as-code for misconfigurations in CI
Add automated IaC security scanning to CI to catch insecure Terraform and Kubernetes configuration before it ships.
Blueprints9
On-Premises to Kubernetes Blueprint
Complete guide for migrating on-premises workloads to Kubernetes
VM to Containers Blueprint
Step-by-step guide for containerizing VM-based applications
Heroku to Kubernetes Blueprint
Migration from Heroku PaaS to self-managed Kubernetes
Mainframe-Adjacent Infrastructure to Azure Blueprint
Migrate the distributed mid-tier and batch infrastructure surrounding a mainframe to Azure, decoupling it while integrating back to the core system.
CloudFormation to Terraform Blueprint
Migrate AWS infrastructure as code from CloudFormation to Terraform, importing existing resources without destroying or recreating live infrastructure.
ClickOps to Terraform Blueprint
Codify manually provisioned cloud resources into Terraform infrastructure-as-code with import, modules, remote state, and CI-driven plans.
CloudFormation to Terraform Blueprint
Migrate AWS CloudFormation stacks to Terraform with state import, module refactoring, and a coexistence strategy during transition.
Terraform to OpenTofu Blueprint
Migrate Terraform projects to OpenTofu, the open-source fork, with version pinning, state compatibility checks, and CI updates.
Snowflake Servers to Immutable Infrastructure Blueprint
Replace hand-tuned snowflake servers with immutable infrastructure built from versioned images and replaced, never patched, in place.
Migrations2
Reference Architectures10
Vector Database Platform on Kubernetes
A reference design for a self-hosted, multi-tenant vector database platform on Kubernetes that powers semantic search and RAG retrieval at scale.
Hub-and-Spoke Cloud Network on Azure
Centralized hub virtual network for shared services with isolated spoke networks for workloads, connected by peering.
Secure Landing Zone on Google Cloud
Opinionated, policy-governed foundation of folders, projects, networking, and guardrails for onboarding workloads safely.
Multi-Region Disaster Recovery on AWS
Cross-region pilot-light and warm-standby design that meets aggressive recovery objectives for critical workloads.
Active-Active Resilience Across Clouds
Multi-cloud design that serves traffic from two providers simultaneously to survive a full provider outage.
Centralized Secrets Management Platform
HashiCorp Vault-based platform for issuing, rotating, and auditing secrets and short-lived credentials across hybrid environments.
PKI and Certificate Lifecycle Management
Private public-key infrastructure for issuing, renewing, and revoking TLS certificates automatically across services.
Backup and Restore Architecture on Azure
Policy-driven backup design with immutable, geo-redundant recovery points and tested restore for workloads and data.
Hybrid Cloud Connectivity Network
Resilient private connectivity between on-premises data centers and cloud using dedicated links and redundant VPNs.
Chaos Engineering and Resilience Platform on AWS
Controlled fault-injection platform that validates resilience hypotheses against production-like systems safely.
Playbooks15
Cloud Migration Playbook
Enterprise guide for migrating on-premises workloads to cloud infrastructure
Datacenter Exit Program Playbook
A phased program to fully vacate one or more owned datacenters by migrating workloads to public cloud and decommissioning physical infrastructure.
VMware to Cloud Program Playbook
A phased program to migrate a VMware vSphere estate to public cloud, choosing between lift-and-shift hypervisor services and native replatforming.
Multi-Region Resilience Program Playbook
A phased program to make a critical application survive a full regional outage through active-active or active-passive multi-region architecture.
FinOps Cost Optimization Program Playbook
A phased program to establish FinOps practice, gain cloud cost visibility, and drive sustained savings through accountability and automation.
Hybrid Cloud Operating Model Playbook
A phased program to run on-premises and public cloud as one operating model with consistent identity, networking, governance, and delivery.
Disaster Recovery Program Playbook
A phased program to design, implement, and continuously test disaster recovery for critical systems against defined RTO and RPO targets.
On-Prem to Azure Migration Program Playbook
A phased program to migrate an on-premises estate to Microsoft Azure with assessment, landing zone, wave migration, and optimization.
Service Mesh Adoption Program Playbook
A phased program to roll out a service mesh for mTLS, traffic management, and observability across a Kubernetes microservices estate.
Infrastructure as Code Adoption Playbook
A phased program to bring an ad-hoc cloud estate under infrastructure as code with modules, pipelines, and policy enforcement.
Cloud Migration Wave Planning Playbook
A phased program to plan and execute a large cloud migration as repeatable waves driven by a migration factory and a portfolio backlog.
Multi-Cloud Operating Model Playbook
A phased program to operate workloads across two or more public clouds with consistent governance, identity, and delivery while avoiding accidental lock-in.
Platform Engineering Program Playbook
A phased program to build an internal developer platform with golden paths and self-service that reduce cognitive load across product teams.
Terraform and IaC Rollout Playbook
A program to introduce Terraform-based infrastructure as code across teams with reusable modules, secure state, and policy guardrails.
Cloud Cost and FinOps Program Playbook
A program to bring financial accountability to cloud spend through cost visibility, allocation, optimization, and continuous governance.
Checklists8
Datacenter Exit Cutover Checklist
Plan and execute the final cutover and decommission steps when exiting an on-premises datacenter for the cloud.
Disaster Recovery Test Checklist
Plan and run a disaster-recovery test that proves backups, runbooks, and recovery objectives actually work end to end.
VM-to-Cloud Cutover Checklist
Execute a safe cutover when rehosting on-premises virtual machines to cloud compute with minimal downtime.
Terraform Module Review Checklist
Review a Terraform module for correctness, reusability, security, and maintainability before publishing it for shared use.
Infrastructure-as-Code Migration Readiness Checklist
Confirm you are ready to bring an existing manually managed cloud estate under infrastructure-as-code without disruption.
Infrastructure as Code Review Checklist
Review Terraform or equivalent IaC for security, modularity, state safety, and reproducibility before it provisions production.
Disaster Recovery Readiness Checklist
Confirm an organization can recover critical services and data within defined objectives after a major failure.
Cloud Landing Zone Security Checklist
Verify a multi-account cloud landing zone enforces identity, network, guardrails, and logging before workloads are onboarded.
Stacks3
Cloud Native Stack
Kubernetes, Helm, Istio, Prometheus - CNCF ecosystem
HashiCorp Stack (Terraform + Vault + Consul + Nomad)
Cloud-agnostic infrastructure suite: Terraform provisions, Vault manages secrets, Consul handles service networking, and Nomad schedules workloads.
Vault + Consul
A HashiCorp infrastructure stack pairing Vault for secrets management and dynamic credentials with Consul for service discovery, configuration, and service mesh.
Comparisons15
AWS vs Azure
Comprehensive comparison of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms
Kubernetes vs Docker Swarm
Container orchestration comparison: Kubernetes vs Docker Swarm
Terraform vs Pulumi
Terraform uses a declarative DSL (HCL) for infrastructure as code; Pulumi lets you define infrastructure in general-purpose languages like TypeScript, Python, or Go.
Terraform vs CloudFormation
Terraform is a multi-cloud IaC tool; AWS CloudFormation is AWS's native infrastructure-as-code service. Terraform wins on portability; CloudFormation on AWS depth.
OpenTofu vs Terraform
OpenTofu is the open-source fork of Terraform created after HashiCorp's BSL license change. The two are largely compatible but differ on licensing and governance.
Kubernetes vs Nomad
Kubernetes is the dominant, feature-rich container orchestrator; HashiCorp Nomad is a simpler, lightweight scheduler for containers and non-containerized workloads.
Ansible vs Terraform
Ansible is a configuration-management and automation tool; Terraform is a declarative infrastructure-provisioning tool. They overlap but solve different core problems.
VMs vs Containers
Virtual machines virtualize hardware with a full guest OS; containers virtualize the OS, sharing the host kernel. VMs offer stronger isolation; containers offer density and speed.
NGINX vs Envoy
NGINX is a battle-tested web server and reverse proxy; Envoy is a modern, dynamically configurable proxy built for cloud-native service mesh and observability.
Traefik vs NGINX
Traefik is a cloud-native reverse proxy with automatic service discovery; NGINX is a mature, high-performance web server and proxy with manual configuration.
AWS CDK vs Terraform
The AWS CDK defines infrastructure in real programming languages that compile to CloudFormation; Terraform uses declarative HCL across many clouds. Code power versus multi-cloud reach.
containerd vs CRI-O
containerd and CRI-O are the two main Kubernetes container runtimes. containerd is general-purpose and widely adopted; CRI-O is minimal and Kubernetes-only by design.
Crossplane vs Terraform
Crossplane manages cloud infrastructure through the Kubernetes API with continuous reconciliation; Terraform uses a standalone CLI and declarative HCL with explicit plan/apply.
Terraform vs Ansible
Terraform is a declarative infrastructure-provisioning tool; Ansible is a procedural configuration-management and automation tool. They solve different DevOps problems.
CPU vs GPU Inference
CPUs and GPUs both run ML inference. GPUs excel at parallel, large-model workloads; CPUs are cheaper and simpler for small models and low concurrency.
Benchmarks23
SPEC CPU 2017
Industry-standard CPU benchmark suite measuring integer and floating-point compute performance under realistic, compute-bound workloads.
CoreMark
Compact, portable CPU benchmark from EEMBC designed to measure embedded and microcontroller core performance with a single comparable number.
Dhrystone
Classic synthetic integer benchmark that produces DMIPS, a historical and still-cited measure of general-purpose integer CPU performance.
Whetstone
Historic synthetic floating-point benchmark measuring scientific-style arithmetic performance, reported in MWIPS (millions of Whetstone instructions per second).
STREAM
Simple, portable benchmark measuring sustainable main-memory bandwidth for large vector operations, the standard metric for memory-bound performance.
Geekbench
Cross-platform benchmark measuring single-core and multi-core CPU performance plus GPU compute, widely used to compare phones, laptops, and servers.
LINPACK / HPL
Dense linear-algebra benchmark solving a large system of equations to measure peak floating-point throughput; HPL ranks the TOP500 supercomputers.
fio Storage I/O Benchmark
Flexible I/O tester for measuring storage device and filesystem performance across configurable read/write patterns, block sizes, and queue depths.
Phoronix Test Suite
Open-source, cross-platform benchmarking framework that automates hundreds of real-world tests and aggregates results for reproducible comparison.
Cold-Start Latency Benchmark
Measures the added latency when a serverless function or container must initialize from scratch before serving its first request after being idle.
SPECpower_ssj2008
Benchmark measuring server energy efficiency by reporting performance per watt across graduated load levels from idle to peak.
SPEC OMP 2012
Benchmark suite measuring shared-memory parallel performance of OpenMP applications across scientific and engineering workloads.
HPCG
High Performance Conjugate Gradients benchmark measuring HPC system performance on memory-bound, sparse computations that mirror real applications.
HPL-AI / HPL-MxP
Mixed-precision LINPACK variant measuring supercomputer performance using low-precision arithmetic refined to full accuracy, reflecting AI hardware.
Graph500
Benchmark ranking supercomputers on data-intensive graph processing, measuring traversed edges per second instead of floating-point throughput.
GAP Benchmark Suite
Reference graph-algorithm benchmark suite providing optimized kernels and standard graphs to fairly compare graph-processing performance.
SPECviewperf
Standard benchmark measuring professional graphics-workstation performance running real CAD, visualization, and content-creation application viewsets.
3DMark
Cross-platform graphics benchmark suite measuring GPU and gaming performance through standardized rendering tests and synthetic feature tests.
Unigine Superposition
GPU stress and benchmark tool using a detailed real-time scene to measure graphics performance, stability, and thermal behavior.
PassMark PerformanceTest
Whole-system PC benchmark suite measuring CPU, memory, disk, 2D, and 3D performance and aggregating them into comparable component scores.
UnixBench
Classic Unix and Linux system benchmark measuring overall performance through CPU, process, file I/O, and system-call tests aggregated into an index.
sysbench CPU Benchmark
CPU test mode of the sysbench tool measuring processor throughput via prime-number computation across single and multiple threads.
stress-ng
Configurable stress-test and micro-benchmark tool that loads CPU, memory, I/O, and kernel subsystems through hundreds of targeted stressors.
FAQs7
What is the difference between a Docker container and a virtual machine?
A virtual machine (VM) virtualizes hardware and runs a full guest operating system on top of a hypervisor, so each VM carries its own kernel and is he...
What is the difference between cloud regions and availability zones?
A region is a distinct geographic area where a cloud provider operates data centers, chosen for proximity to users, latency, and data-residency requir...
What is the difference between hybrid cloud and multi-cloud?
Hybrid cloud combines private infrastructure, such as on-premises data centers or a private cloud, with one or more public clouds, integrating them so...
What is infrastructure as code?
Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the practice of defining and provisioning infrastructure, such as servers, networks, and databases, through machine-re...
What is DNS and how does it work?
The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-readable names like example.com into the IP addresses machines use to route traffic. A resolver queries ...
What is a reverse proxy?
A reverse proxy is a server that sits in front of backend servers and forwards client requests to them, returning the responses as if it were the orig...
What is a load balancer?
A load balancer distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers so no single instance becomes a bottleneck, improving availability and sc...
Glossaries25
Containerization
Packaging software code with its dependencies so it can run uniformly across computing environments
Service Mesh
A dedicated infrastructure layer for handling service-to-service communication in microservices
Containers
Lightweight, portable units of software that package code and dependencies together to run consistently across different computing environments
Load Balancer
A device or software that distributes network traffic across multiple servers to ensure reliability and optimal resource utilization
Reverse Proxy
A server that sits in front of backend servers and forwards client requests to them, providing load balancing, caching, and security
High Availability
A system design approach that ensures a specified level of operational performance, typically measured as uptime percentage
Scaling
The ability to increase or decrease system capacity to handle varying workloads, either vertically or horizontally
Redundancy
Duplication of critical system components to ensure availability and reliability in case of failure
Availability Zone
An availability zone is one or more discrete data centers within a cloud region, with independent power, cooling, and networking, designed to be isolated from failures in other zones.
Region
A region is a geographic area where a cloud provider operates a cluster of data centers, organized into availability zones, in which customers deploy and store resources.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a service is a cloud model that provides on-demand access to fundamental computing resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking, which customers manage themselves.
Spot Instance
A spot instance is spare cloud compute capacity offered at a deep discount that the provider can reclaim with little notice, suited to fault-tolerant and interruptible workloads.
Reserved Instance
A reserved instance is a cloud pricing model in which a customer commits to using compute capacity for a one- or three-year term in exchange for a significant discount over on-demand rates.
Edge Computing
Edge computing is a model that runs processing and storage close to where data is generated or consumed, rather than in a centralized cloud region, to reduce latency and bandwidth use.
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
A virtual private cloud is a logically isolated section of a public cloud where a customer can define their own private network, including subnets, IP ranges, routing, and firewall rules.
Object Storage
Object storage is a data storage architecture that manages data as discrete objects with metadata and a unique identifier in a flat namespace, accessed over HTTP APIs and scaling to massive volumes.
Block Storage
Block storage is a storage architecture that splits data into fixed-size blocks presented to a server as a raw volume, on which a file system or database can be placed for low-latency, high-performance access.
Egress
Egress is the movement of data out of a network, system, or cloud provider, often metered and billed; in cloud computing it commonly refers to data transfer leaving a provider's network to the internet or another region.
Container Registry
A container registry is a service that stores, versions, and distributes container images, allowing clients to push built images and pull them for deployment.
DaemonSet
A DaemonSet is a Kubernetes controller that ensures a copy of a specified pod runs on every (or a selected subset of) node in the cluster, commonly used for node-level agents.
Namespace (Kubernetes)
A Kubernetes namespace is a virtual partition within a cluster that scopes resource names and enables isolation, access control, and resource quotas across teams or environments.
Control Plane (Kubernetes)
The control plane is the set of Kubernetes components that manage the cluster's overall state, making global decisions such as scheduling and responding to events to drive the cluster toward its desired state.
Kubelet
The kubelet is the primary node agent in Kubernetes that runs on every worker node, ensuring the containers described in the pods assigned to that node are running and healthy.
Persistent Volume
A persistent volume is a Kubernetes resource representing a piece of durable storage in the cluster whose lifecycle is independent of any individual pod, allowing data to survive pod restarts and rescheduling.
DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) is the internet's distributed naming system that translates human-readable domain names into the IP addresses needed to locate servers.