Enhancing infrastructure automation: Top tools and techniques to streamline deployment

Infrastructure automation is the process of eliminating manual tasks in infrastructure deployment, configuration, and maintenance workflows. It improves DevOps speed, safety, and consistency by letting engineers stay focused on more meaningful tasks. There are fewer delays and less chance of human error.

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Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools like Terraform and Pulumi underpin infrastructure automation, but these solutions are just the start of an effective implementation. In this guide, we're going to share some advanced techniques for enhanced infrastructure management using the capabilities of modern IaC platforms. Let's get started with a closer look at the differences between traditional and next-gen processes.

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The problems with traditional infrastructure automation

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Infrastructure automation revolves around IaC tools that standardize how cloud resources are provisioned. Once you've written your IaC configs, you can use commands like terraform apply or pulumi up to create your infrastructure in your cloud accounts.

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Manually triggering IaC tools in this way does provide a degree of infrastructure automation and standardization. It removes the need to painstakingly click through cloud provider dashboards to provision new resources. However, such simple IaC workflows are prone to some common problems:

• Hard to combine multiple tools: It can be challenging to integrate different tools or conveniently use multiple IaC services side-by-side, such as Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.
• Difficult to manage infrastructure state files: IaC tools like Terraform and Pulumi generate state files that must be carefully stored and secured. You need to set up state repositories and organize state file locking to prevent conflicts from occurring.
• Limited infrastructure visibility and governance: Regular IaC solutions focus on provisioning and configuration tasks. They're not designed for Day-2 operations such as continuous monitoring, cost optimization, and governance policy enforcement.
• Susceptible to drift that's hard to resolve: Infrastructure can drift from its correct state after you run terraform apply and similar commands. It's hard to find and fix drift without manually running your IaC tools again, making it more likely you'll encounter misconfigurations in live environments.
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These issues mean standalone IaC isn't enough to fully automate infrastructure management at scale. It's a great starting point, but one that still leaves you reliant on manual processes to carry out crucial Day-2 tasks. Here's how to take your infrastructure automation to the next level using proven tools and techniques.

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How to streamline infrastructure automation: Top tools and techniques

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The following six strategies are some of the top ways to successfully automate DevOps infrastructure. They're best practices that can help you streamline infrastructure management processes while supporting broader DevOps automation outcomes. Infrastructure doesn't exist in a silo, so it's important to use tools and workflows that naturally complement each other throughout your DevOps lifecycle.

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1. Automate IaC with CI/CD

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CI/CD solutions such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, and CircleCI are a good way to start automating your IaC tools. Creating a CI/CD pipeline in one of these services lets you automatically run terraform apply or aws cloudformation deploy after you change your IaC files.

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Applying IaC changes through CI/CD pipelines removes the need for developers to run tools locally. This makes infrastructure deployments faster and more consistent. It also eliminates risky manual sharing of cloud credentials—you can run all deployments using a single set of credentials stored as a CI/CD secret.

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These general-purpose CI/CD platforms aren't specifically designed for infrastructure processes so they can be limiting at scale or difficult to customize. However, they're familiar to developers and easy to get started with. Leading services do now include some features aimed at IaC and infrastructure automation, such as the integrated Terraform/OpenTofu state management capabilities included with GitLab or the prebuilt setup-terraform action available in the GitHub Actions marketplace.

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2. Use next-gen infrastructure automation platforms

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Purpose-built infrastructure automation platforms such as Spacelift, Env0, and HCP Terraform (previously Terraform Cloud) address the IaC limitations of standard CI/CD solutions. These platforms implement managed CI/CD workflows for your infrastructure tools, letting you provision and configure cloud resources without manually setting up CI/CD pipelines.

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Compared to conventional CI/CD, IaC orchestration provides the missing pieces for full infrastructure automation at scale. The platforms deliver a fully automated GitOps-driven workflow: they connect to the Git repositories that store your IaC files, then automatically run your IaC tools as you commit IaC changes.

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Vendor-tied platforms like Terraform Cloud and Pulumi Cloud are optimized for their specific IaC tools, but IaC-agnostic options including Spacelift and Env0 are designed to unify multiple IaC solutions in one place. Both services let you work with Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Kubernetes, and more.

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Dedicated infrastructure automation platforms handle more than just deployment tasks. They also take care of Day-2 operations by letting you monitor what's deployed and enforce governance policies. Built-in state management features let you easily store, version, and lock state files without using any external tools. Moreover, the platform-driven approach guarantees consistency throughout your infrastructure's lifecycle—there's a single destination to perform any infrastructure task.

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3. Allow developers to directly engage with infrastructure processes

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DevOps is all about bringing developers and operators closer together, yet many teams still keep infrastructure processes separate from developers. This can prevent engineers from effectively debugging problems in live environments.

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Allowing developers to directly engage with infrastructure workflows helps to level up DevOps automation. If developers have self-service access to IaC processes, then they can monitor deployments or spin up new test environments on-demand. Development workflows become more efficient when devs don't need to wait for other teams to take action.

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Adopting this strategy can improve infrastructure automation's ROI. Whereas IaC has historically been constrained to infrastructure deployment tasks, opening up developer access extends IaC's reach into the build and testing stages of the DevOps lifecycle. You can utilize your IaC configs to streamline development processes and improve overall productivity.

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Nonetheless, it's important to realize that developer access to IaC doesn't mean handing developers cloud credentials and letting them run pulumi up. Access should be centralized through an infrastructure automation platform like Spacelift or Env0 so you can properly secure your resources, enforce governance rules, and monitor developer activity. You can then grant safe access to just the IaC components that developers actually require.

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4. Implement automated infrastructure drift detection and resolution

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Infrastructure drift occurs when the resources in your cloud accounts no longer match the configs defined in your IaC files. There's many different causes such as unexpected auto-updates, a system entering an error state, or manual changes being applied by DevOps teams outside of IaC.

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Whatever the reason, drift is always unwelcome as it means your infrastructure ends up misconfigured. It can lead to errors, performance issues, and compliance breaches.

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Using IaC platforms that support automated drift detection and resolution is the best way to defend against this threat. This ensures you're kept informed of drift as it happens. Drift typically becomes harder to fix the longer that it exists, so proactive drift alerts are a vital way to stay ahead.

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Platforms such as Spacelift periodically compare your live infrastructure to the IaC files in your repository, then flag any discrepancies. Spacelift can also use your IaC configs to optionally fix any problems it finds. Precise governance policies let you control when auto-reconciliation is allowed, such as to require manual approval before making potentially disruptive changes. Env0 offers similar features too including policy-based auto-resolution and pinpointing of events that may have caused the drift.

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5. Include infrastructure automation processes in your Cloud observability plans

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Infrastructure automation aims to result in hands-off infrastructure management, but you still need visibility into what's deployed and how it got there. Plain IaC tools fall short in this area because they don't include built-in ways to monitor everything running in your cloud accounts.

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Baking observability into your infrastructure automation strategy ensures you're able to accurately track your resources. Seeing what's running where, who created it, and what it does lets you make informed infrastructure management decisions. It also helps you avoid the cost overruns and security threats posed by forgotten resources that are now redundant.

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There are two main pillars of infrastructure visibility:

• Visibility into what's currently running in your cloud accounts.
• Visibility into IaC deployment activity, such as when changes were applied and by who.
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You can access this data within IaC orchestration platforms. Env0 provides a centralized catalog of your cloud resources, for instance, including the ability to spot potential security risks. Similarly, Spacelift lets you easily drill down through all the resources in your IaC stacks, letting you see everything in your cloud accounts across all IaC tools.

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6. Embrace Policy-as-Code for infrastructure management

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Policy-as-Code is the use of code-defined policies to enforce security and compliance requirements in IaC workflows. Tools like Checkov, Hashicorp Sentinel, Pulumi CrossGuard and OPA let you write expressive policies that you can version, test, and maintain in a similar way to your other DevOps assets. You can then block infrastructure deployments that introduce misconfigurations or violate compliance rules.

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Policy checks must be centralized to be effective. Developers may be able to bypass your policies if they can run IaC tools locally, eliminating the benefits. Instead, ensure all IaC deployments are processed via a consistent CI/CD pipeline that lets you run policy tests before resource changes reach your infrastructure.

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IaC orchestrators come with built-in Policy-as-Code powers. Spacelift has a granular OPA-driven policy engine, for example, while both Hashicorp Sentinel and OPA are available for use in HCP Terraform Cloud. Using these platforms to consolidate policy enforcement directly alongside infrastructure deployments lets you safely open access to your infrastructure workflows within defined guardrails.

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The benefits of enhanced infrastructure automation

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Implementing these strategies gives you dependable infrastructure automation that's ready to use at scale. You can confidently automate your deployments while maintaining DevOps security best practices. Infrastructure automation allows you to reliably scale your environments, contributing to operational efficiency improvements.

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There's clear evidence that leading edge techniques including IaC orchestration, self-service access, and Policy-as-Code directly impact infrastructure automation outcomes. Moreover, these capabilities also affect the ability of DevOps teams to innovate quickly. Spacelift's 2025 Infrastructure Automation Report found that teams with high-performing infrastructure processes are 2x as likely to get deployments right the first time and 4x as likely to be able to provision new resources within 4 hours, for instance.

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Frequently cited benefits of advanced infrastructure automation implementations include shorter time-to-market, reduced inter-team friction, and greater operational resilience. For example, Semantive's collaboration with Swiss energy producer Axpo Polska—including Terraform automation and the implementation of new CI/CD pipelines—saw Axpo accelerate the development of business critical applications. It became easier for dev teams to start new pilot environments during the DevOps lifecycle.

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Summary

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Infrastructure automation helps you scale your DevOps processes, but it's important to think beyond standard IaC tools. Writing Terraform or Pulumi code is just the starting point: you need to automate how your tools run, robustly enforce governance policies, and ensure you can find and fix drift promptly. These measures take time to set up, but they culminate in advanced infrastructure management that benefits your entire DevOps lifecycle.

We know that Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, and the choice between platforms such as Spacelift vs Terraform Cloud can feel daunting. At Semantive, we're cloud transformation specialists ready to help you automate your own infrastructure environments. Talk to our experts to get advice and learn more cloud deployment best practices for DevOps automation.