2.2.1.2. Change Management Processes for IaC Platforms

First Principle: Formal change management ensures infrastructure changes are controlled, auditable, and predictable, preventing unintended consequences, maintaining stability, and enabling rapid recovery.

Formal change management is vital for IaC. It aligns with the principles of automation and continuous improvement.

Key IaC Change Management Practices:

• Versioning IaC Templates: Use VCS (e.g., Git) for complete history, preventing configuration drift and providing audit trails.
• Pull Requests (PRs) for Review: Mandate PRs for all changes, enabling peer review for correctness, security, and standards.
• Automated Testing: Validate IaC changes (linting, unit/integration tests) before deployment to ensure desired state and prevent regressions.
• Approval Workflows: Implement explicit approvals for critical changes, ensuring accountability and compliance.

Scenario: A DevOps team uses CloudFormation to manage their production infrastructure. Changes are sometimes deployed directly without review, leading to occasional outages or security misconfigurations.

Reflection Question: How would implementing a formal change management process for IaC (e.g., mandatory Git version control, Pull Request (PR) reviews, and automated testing) address the issues of uncontrolled changes, improve auditability, and enhance stability?

These practices ensure reliable, secure infrastructure evolution, upholding the principle of controlled operations.

💡 Tip: IaC's version control and automated deployment simplify rollback procedures significantly compared to manual changes.