Workflow Orchestration in IaC: Unveiling the magic behind seamless automation

IaC workflow orchestration is the process of automating end-to-end infrastructure delivery systems. It works by wrapping IaC tools like Terraform and Pulumi with a managed platform layer that continually supports DevOps teams.

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Orchestrating IaC workflows makes it faster and easier to provision, configure, and maintain your infrastructure. It leads to next-level automation that reduces errors and boosts consistency. In this article, we're going to explore the benefits of IaC orchestration and discuss practical implementation strategies.

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What is IaC workflow orchestration?

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IaC workflow orchestration refers to the combination of tools, processes, and best practices that enables seamless infrastructure management at scale. Whereas traditional IaC automation approaches have relied on standalone tools like Terraform and Pulumi, orchestrated systems combine IaC deployments, developer access, monitoring, and compliance controls in one cohesive workflow.

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Orchestrating all these processes within a single platform improves consistency throughout the DevOps lifecycle. Modern solutions like Spacelift and Env0 consolidate your IaC tools, run them automatically after changes are made, and then provide cross-cloud visibility into your live environments. The platform-based architecture allows you to centrally configure governance policies, preventing misconfigured changes from deploying.

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By contrast, standard IaC workflows typically revolve around DevOps teams manually running terraform apply, pulumi up, or similar commands. You might need to use multiple tools to deploy your whole stack, each needing specialist knowledge and separate steps to configure cloud credentials. Orchestrated IaC workflows eliminate these difficulties so you can operate your infrastructure more reliably.

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Benefits of automated IaC workflow orchestration

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"Orchestration" can seem a complex term, so let's first unpack what it means. The dictionary definition refers to the "harmonious organization" of multiple components to achieve a desired result. For IaC, this means integrating different tools and processes in a way that lets you automate your infrastructure to the greatest extent possible.

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Unifying all infrastructure workflows within a platform-driven architecture makes cloud resource management more convenient. Here's the key benefits that DevOps teams experience, along with how they happen.

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1. Improved speed and efficiency

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Orchestrating IaC workflows enhances DevOps speed and efficiency. Infrastructure processes run automatically when they're needed, removing the need for operators to manually apply IaC changes. This frees up DevOps teams to stay focused on more meaningful work, improving operational efficiency.

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Orchestration platforms also allow developers to trigger infrastructure workflows on-demand. Automating key tasks such as launching a staging environment or applying scaling changes means developers can work more autonomously, without needing specialist infrastructure skills. This helps reduce delays between DevOps lifecycle stages. You can still maintain compliance through the use of platform-enforced governance policies that limit developer access to just the resources they need.

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2. Seamless automation throughout the entire infrastructure lifecycle

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Infrastructure management doesn't end once your resources are deployed. You also need to automate Day-2 tasks such as monitoring for problems, applying scaling optimizations, and tracking cloud costs.

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Implementing IaC workflow orchestration is one of the key ways to fulfill these requirements. By unifying different processes in one platform, you can ensure all resources are tracked for Day-2 operations as soon as they're deployed.

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You can use platforms like Spacelift to fully automate infrastructure lifecycles. For instance, Spacelift's scheduled stacks let you trigger tasks at a specific time or on a regular schedule. This makes it possible to automatically destroy staging environments once they reach a certain age, for example.

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3. Consistent process for every IaC change and tool

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IaC workflow orchestration allows you to manage all your IaC tools using one standard process. This contrasts with traditional approaches where you need multiple CI/CD pipelines or manual actions to combine separate tools.

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This matters because it's common for DevOps teams to rely on multiple IaC languages and cloud providers. For instance, you may use Terraform to provision compute instances in your cloud accounts, Ansible to configure those instances as Kubernetes Nodes, then Helm to deploy workloads to the resulting Kubernetes cluster. This workflow would be complicated to configure and maintain with regular CI/CD, but orchestration platforms can seamlessly automate the entire process.

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Orchestrators standardize your infrastructure workflows using GitOps concepts. You simply connect your Git repositories to the platform, then merge IaC changes using familiar Git processes. Once changes are merged, the platform automatically runs any required policy tests and triggers the correct IaC tool to update your live infrastructure. This ensures consistency throughout the DevOps lifecycle and helps you continually enforce Infrastructure as Code best practices.

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4. Enhanced scalability

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Orchestrating IaC processes makes it quicker to scale your infrastructure when needed in your DevOps workflow. Because everything's automated in one place, you can more easily bring up new resources to meet changes in demand. Using platforms to open infrastructure access to additional stakeholders—such as developers as well as operations teams—can also help create new opportunities to apply scaling changes promptly.

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Moreover, orchestration benefits the scalability of infrastructure processes themselves. Dedicated IaC platforms make it easier to adopt new IaC tools, for instance. You can simply write your IaC code, connect your repositories, and lean on the platform's automation to deploy your infrastructure in your cloud accounts. This removes the need to build, test, and debug complex CI/CD pipeline implementations.

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5. Integrated observability

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IaC workflow orchestration allows you to deeply embed observability in your infrastructure processes. Observability refers to your ability to monitor deployed infrastructure so you can make informed optimization decisions.

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Standalone IaC tools fall short in this area because they don't let you easily see all the assets in your cloud accounts. But with an orchestrator like Spacelift or Env0, you can achieve true "single pane of glass" visibility. Because these platforms both run your IaC tools and track your infrastructure's state, they let you track your entire cloud inventory and trace the causes of changes.

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6. Simplified drift detection and resolution

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DevOps teams struggle to manage infrastructure drift using conventional IaC workflows. Standalone IaC tools ensure your infrastructure's state matches your repository immediately after you run commands like terraform apply, but they can't notify you if drift occurs later on. Drift can lead to misconfigurations, security issues, and compliance breaches, so it needs to be found and fixed as it happens.

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Implementing full IaC orchestration allows you to automate your drift detection and resolution processes. Because IaC management platforms run your deployments and track your infrastructure's state, they're well-positioned to find drift too.

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With Spacelift and Env0 you can schedule regular drift detection runs that compare your live infrastructure to the configs currently in your IaC repositories, for instance. The platforms have access to both your IaC files and cloud accounts so they can continually spot discrepancies, then restore the correct state by repeating your IaC pipeline. Users of these features find they improve deployment safety and reduce developer queries about unexpected infrastructure states.

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7. Self-service access options

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IaC workflow orchestration makes it easier to configure self-service access to infrastructure processes. Whereas previously IaC access may have been confined to dedicated operations teams, adopting a platform-driven architecture means developers can safely engage with infrastructure too. Not only does this improve developer autonomy and efficiency—as discussed above—but it also makes infrastructure processes more convenient for everyone involved with your projects.

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Simple IaC systems depend on team members having direct access to IaC tools, cloud credentials, and config files. This makes tasks such as applying scaling changes, accessing logs, or checking deployment history complex and error-prone. Adding an orchestration layer on top of your IaC tools enables easy on-demand access to these functions. You can use platform engineering principles to let authorized users run key operations in a few clicks or with a standardized CLI command.

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How to implement IaC workflow orchestration?

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Orchestrating IaC workflows requires you to coordinate your infrastructure processes across deployment, configuration, and maintenance tasks. It's easiest to do this using dedicated platforms that are purpose-built for IaC needs.

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New-generation solutions such as Spacelift, Env0, and HCP Terraform (formerly Terraform Cloud) are specially designed for this use case. They automate IaC deployments using a GitOps strategy, running your IaC tools each time you commit to your config files. These platforms also include integrated monitoring, drift detection, and Policy-as-Code capabilities.

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If you need more customization, then you can build your own CI/CD pipelines instead. Use solutions such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, and CircleCI to implement your own IaC automation and run your tools at logical points in your DevOps lifecycle. However, this makes it harder to manage IaC state files and enable self-service access because traditional CI/CD services aren't designed for infrastructure processes. For these reasons, it's usually easiest to use an all-in-one platform that gives developers, operators, and other stakeholders one destination to manage all infrastructure tasks.

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To summarize, successfully orchestrating IaC workflows requires:

• Use of new-gen infrastructure automation platforms like Spacelift and Env0 to unify IaC tools.
• Consolidation of all infrastructure tasks within the selected platform.
• Self-service developer access to IaC processes.
• Clear visibility into workflow activity including when deployments run and who (or what) is triggering them.
• Robust Policy-as-Code governance controls to enforce security and compliance requirements.
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When using this strategy, your hardest task could be choosing between IaC platforms such as Spacelift vs Terraform Cloud. You should base your decision on the orchestration features you need most, as well as the IaC tools you're using. Terraform Cloud is an accessible option for DevOps teams that are all-in on Terraform and the HashiCorp ecosystem, for example, while Spacelift is a versatile option for IaC tools including Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible and more. It also has strong self-service access capabilities including multi-tenancy with policy-based guardrails. Env0, Atlantis, and Pulumi Cloud are other key options to explore.

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Summary

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IaC workflow orchestration is the process of unifying different IaC tools and processes to increase infrastructure automation at scale. Orchestrated infrastructure workflows combine reliable IaC deployments with essential Day-2 tasks including monitoring, drift detection, and continuous compliance.

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Compared with adhoc use of IaC tools, orchestration platforms like Spacelift and Env0 are easier to maintain within the DevOps lifecycle. They accelerate the pace of DevOps by giving you one destination to manage your cloud infrastructure. Developers benefit from self-service access to IaC pipelines, while operations teams can enforce guardrails that ensure predictable results.

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Need help to get started orchestrating your IaC workflows? Book a consultation with our cloud transformation experts at Semantive. We're specialists in cloud architecture design, DevOps automation, and Spacelift adoption. Together, we'll plan your journey towards seamless infrastructure automation that scales.