EnglishCommonly used IaC languages
There are several commonly used IaC languages. Below are some of the most popular ones.
Terraform is a popular open-source tool and Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure. Terraform is cloud agnostic, which means that it has a generic syntax can be used to configure a wide range of cloud providers and infrastructure platforms, including AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL, firewalls, and more. But it must be noted that each platform needs its own configuration details – in Terraform, configuring an EC2 VM in AWS is done differently than configuring a VM in Azure.
As an example, the following Terraform code creates a virtual machine in Azure:
Resource "azurerm_network_interface" "mynic" {
name = "myvm1-nic"
location = "northeurope"
resource_group_name = "MyRG"
ip_configuration {
name = "ipconfig1"
subnet_id = azurerm_subnet.frontendsubnet.id
private_ip_address_allocation = "Dynamic"
}
}
Resource "azurerm_windows_virtual_machine" "example" {
name = "myvm1"
location = "northeurope"
resource_group_name = "MyRG"
network_interface_ids = [azurerm_network_interface.mynic.id]
size = "Standard_B1s"
admin_username = "adminuser"
admin_password = "Password123!"
source_image_reference {
publisher = "MicrosoftWindowsServer"
offer = "WindowsServer"
sku = "2019-Datacenter"
version = "latest"
}
os_disk {
caching = "ReadWrite"
storage_account_type = "Standard_LRS"
}
}
As a comparison, the following Terraform code creates an EC2 virtual machine in AWS:
resource "aws_instance" "example" {
ami = "ami-0be2609ba883822ec" # Windows Server 2019 Base
instance_type = "t2.micro"
key_name = "my_keypair"
vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.allow_rdp.id]
subnet_id = "subnet-12345678"
associate_public_ip_address = true
private_ip = "10.0.1.10" # Private IP address of the instance
user_data = <<-EOF
<powershell>
# Set the administrator password
net user Administrator <password>
</powershell>
EOF
}
}
As you can see, the syntax is the same, but the way the virtual machine is created is different between the cloud providers.
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are JSON files that describe Azure infrastructure resources. ARM templates provide a declarative syntax for defining the infrastructure resources and their dependencies, as well as the configuration settings for each resource.
Azure Bicep is a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for Microsoft Azure. Bicep builds on top of ARM templates and provides an abstraction layer that allows developers to write code that is easier to read and write than ARM templates. Bicep supports the same resources and functionality as ARM templates, but with a more intuitive syntax, better error handling, and reusable modules.
The following Bicep script creates a virtual machine in Azure:
param location string = 'eastus'
param vmName string = 'myVm'
param adminUsername string = 'admin'
param adminPassword string = 'password'
resource vm 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines@2021-04-01' = {
name: vmName
location: location
tags: {
environment: 'dev'
}
properties: {
hardwareProfile: {
vmSize: 'Standard_D2_v3'
}
storageProfile: {
imageReference: {
publisher: 'MicrosoftWindowsServer'
offer: 'WindowsServer'
sku: '2019-Datacenter'
version: 'latest'
}
osDisk: {
createOption: 'FromImage'
}
}
osProfile: {
computerName: vmName
adminUsername: adminUsername
adminPassword: adminPassword
}
networkProfile: {
networkInterfaces: [
{
id: resourceId('Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces', '${vmName}-nic')
}
]
}
}
}
resource nic 'Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces@2021-02-01' = {
name: '${vmName}-nic'
location: location
properties: {
ipConfigurations: [
{
name: 'ipconfig1'
properties: {
subnet: {
id: resourceId('Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets', 'myVnet', 'default')
}
privateIPAllocationMethod: 'Dynamic'
}
}
]
}
}
Google Cloud Deployment Manager allows to define and manage GCP cloud infrastructures using YAML or Python templates. It is similar to Azure ARM templates. Google Cloud Deployment Manager defines and manages GCP resources, such as Compute Engine virtual machines, Google Kubernetes Engine clusters, Cloud Storage buckets, and Cloud SQL databases.
The following Cloud Deployment Manager YAML script creates a virtual machine in GCP:
resources:
- name: my-vm
type: compute.v1.instance
properties:
zone: us-central1-a
machineType: zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/n1-standard-1
disks:
- deviceName: boot
type: PERSISTENT
boot: true
autoDelete: true
initializeParams:
sourceImage: projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/ debian-10
networkInterfaces:
- network: global/networks/default
accessConfigs:
- name: External NAT
type: ONE_TO_ONE_NAT
AWS CloudFormation allows to define and manage AWS cloud infrastructures using JSON or YAML templates. It is similar to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and Google Cloud Deployment Manager. CloudFormation can define and manage AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and RDS databases.
The following CloudFormation script creates an EC2 virtual machine in AWS:
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Resources:
EC2Instance:
Type: 'AWS::EC2::Instance'
Properties:
ImageId: 'ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0' # Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
InstanceType: 't2.micro'
KeyName: 'my-key-pair'
NetworkInterfaces:
- GroupSet:
- 'sg-0123456789abcdef' # security group
AssociatePublicIpAddress: 'true'
DeviceIndex: '0'
DeleteOnTermination: 'true'
This entry was posted on Wednesday 30 April 2025
