As a CTO I am responsible for making technology-related decisions, taking into consideration the specific business objectives. My goal is to facilitate the working process within a company by shaping a strategic plan tailored to the company culture. I closely cooperate with Product Owers and developers utilizing my expertise in narrow technical domains. 

Bartłomiej Wójtowicz

Selleo Developers

I am an agile Team Leader, Project Manager, and testing advocate supporting other developers. Having optimization and scalability in mind, I have led software teams for over 11 years in the end-to-end project development lifecycle, e.g., architecture design, code, and documentation review. I specialize in creating eHealthcare solutions that meet HIPPA requirements. 

Szymon Kieloch

\[TOC\]

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is the biggest company in the world, and a part of that empire is Amazon Web Services, or AWS for short - but **what is AWS**?

The beginning of AWS dates in the early 2000s when in July of 2002 Amazon.com Web Services was launched. 4 years later, in 2006, Amazon S3 cloud storage launched to help developers stop worrying about where they are going to store their app data. AWS has gone on to become the world’s most comprehensive cloud platform, rising as competition to the likes of Microsoft Azure.

AWS is now one of the most significant areas of profit for Amazon as a whole company. It’s also one of the biggest names in the whole of big data right now and it’s not going anywhere.

So, they must be doing something right over there at Amazon. But what exactly do we mean by ‘cloud platform’? Read on to find out everything there’s to know about Amazon Web Services.

## What is cloud computing?

If you find yourself wondering ‘what is cloud computing?’ then we really recommend getting to know all about it! It could have a massive impact on the success of your latest project, or the success of your company as a whole.

Cloud computing is effectively just the delivery of computer services through ‘the cloud’, or online. These services can include the likes of intelligence, networking, storage, servers, software and so many more areas.

### Benefits of Cloud Computing

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/1500x1038/21e6addbf0/benefits-of-cloud-computing.jpg)

Cloud computing is a relatively new technology and as such, a lot of people and companies have not managed to recognise its true potential yet. You can get ahead of the curve yourself if you can see what it can do for you, so let’s take a look at some of the key benefits that cloud computing has to offer to your business right now:

* **Cost:** instead of having to invest in new technology (or even more expensive, development teams to help you put together new technology), cloud computing users will just pay for the pre-built services they use in a subscription model.
* **Scale:** no matter the size of your project, you’ll be able to bring in the right amount of resources as and when you need it, anywhere in the world. On top of this, the AWS storage service can be as big or as small as you want it to be, another example of the excellent scalability that AWS has to offer.
* **Speed:** there will be no need for capacity planning anymore, as you’ll be able to bring in those resources within a few clicks of a mouse as most of the cloud computing services are self-service and available on demand. Take [Terraform](https://selleo.com/blog/why-choose-terraform-over-chef-puppet-ansible-saltstack-and-cloudformation) as an example.
* **Performance:** AWS is run on a worldwide network of data centers that can get data out to you as quickly as you need it. You will notice a significant reduction in network latency that can have a serious positive impact on the performance you receive.
* **Reliability:** cloud computing providers, such as Amazon, are super reliable companies and this reliability will translate into your own usage of the systems as well. You can be confident that content delivery from your own product is going to be at the best level it can be, which is, of course, going to satisfy your customers.
* **Productivity:** physical data centers, based on site, tend to require plenty of setup, patching etc. which simply does not need to be done with the likes of AWS.
* **Security:** the best cloud providers will ensure that the security they provide are second-to-none. Everything will be secure here.

<Baner name={devops} />

## What is AWS?

If you’ve not come across Amazon Web Services (or AWS) before, let us explain. This is a branch of the almighty Amazon organisation that deals with cloud computing.

AWS is one of the most popular examples of a cloud computing platform, in the United States and worldwide. It has quickly caught up with the likes of Microsoft Azure, and we fail to see how it will not stay at the top of the game for many years to come. In fact, AWS is widely recognised to be the most comprehensive cloud computing platform out there, a huge claim to fame!

Incredibly, the market share of cloud computing platforms that AWS currently represents is at 32,4% according to [Investopedia](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011316/what-amazon-web-services-and-why-it-so-successful.asp). When we consider all the amazing competition that AWS is up against (we’ll talk about which companies they are a little later on), this is truly an astonishing figure.

The AWS platform contains all of the most important cloud services you could need, so let’s take a look at a few of them.

<ReadMore> Read also: [Terraform Vs Ansible - Friends Or Foes? Which Should I Choose?](https://selleo.com/blog/terraform-vs-ansible) </ReadMore>

### Key features of AWS

* **Security and reliability:** Amazon as a company prides itself in security. After all, you don’t get to the top of the game in the way that they have if you have any chinks in your armour whatsoever. You can be confident in the fact that this security will trickle down to the experience you receive as you use the platform.
* **Scalability and adaptability:** AWS is perhaps the most powerful cloud computing platform you can use. Not only does this make things an awful lot faster, but it allows you to scale your usage of the platform to your own needs. Plus, no matter where you are in the world, you will be able to get the maximum potential of AWS.

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/1500x927/da955f8297/key-features-of-aws.jpg)

These are just a couple of many benefits of AWS. They are, however, the two areas that are considered to be the strongest points of the platform.

## AWS Top Services

We mentioned a couple of times that AWS is the most comprehensive cloud computing platform out there, and a big part of that claim is the sheer volume of services it has to offer - over 100 of them, no less!

But what are the main services to look out for? Of course, it really depends on what you want from your own project using the platform, but here are some of our favourites. We recommend that you check most of these out regardless of what you are looking to use the platform for!

* **Compute:** referred to as Amazon EC2, this is a web service that provides computer capacity within the cloud. It’s secure, reliable and scalable. That’s probably why it’s so popular - potentially the most popular of web services.
* **Storage:** enjoy all the best cloud storage, computing storage, database storage you can find from any cloud computing platform, courtesy of AWS. Store data as easily as you like with the AWS storage service.
* **Databases:** Amazon RDS supports three open-source cloud computing databases, which means that any developer tools, code or applications you use right now can be configured within AWS. This will save you a lot of time as you transfer to the platform. This is a hugely important part of any infrastructure services, so we are glad to see Amazon nail it on this front.
* **Analytics:** imagine being able to see in almost real-time who is interacting with your project and what they are doing? An essential part of the feedback loop, AWS excels with its use of analytics. Its data warehouse is also particularly useful on the analytical side of things.
* **Networking:** Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) allows for a set administrator to have control over an isolated section of the cloud. This has the benefit of more flexibility. Networking speed within AWS couldn’t be much quicker, either. It’s some of the fastest in the world and is likely to only get faster as time goes by.
* **Mobile:** mobile app development could not be more popular right now, so for a cloud computing platform to excel in mobile development, things are going to look good. And that’s exactly what AWS does. The AWS mobile application service is one of the finest out there - don’t miss out on that one!
* **Developer tools:** no matter what your team’s programming language of choice is, they will be able to find a wide range of development tools that will suit all kinds of software projects. AWS gives a huge degree of flexibility, and delivers the finest results that any developers are going to love.
* **Management tools:** when you set up AWS for the first time, you will be able to select a number of administrators and other levels of management that will have defined privileges and controls over the project.
* **IoT:** have you ever come across the phrase ‘if that, then this?’ Amazon has. The Internet of Things is the future, and it can deliver spectacular results for your users.
* **Security:** AWS is one of the most secure platforms online, so you can be confident that any confidential information is going to be protected as well as it possibly can be when you use the service.
* **Enterprise applications:** there are a huge amount of enterprise applications within AWS that can be used in over 190 countries at the time of writing. No matter where you are in the world, or what you are trying to do with your next project, AWS has you covered.
* **Machine learning:** Amazon itself claims that AWS has the ‘broadest and deepest set of machine learning services’ that one can find. It is currently supporting over 1000 customers with their own machine learning experiences, and this is, of course, likely to rise substantially in the coming months and years. If machine learning is something you are interested in, AWS could be the one to help with that.

## Companies Using AWS

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/720x408/2c6a72074c/companies-using-aws.jpg)

By now, we imagine that you are starting to see the benefits of AWS, including what it might be able to do for your company. But, we understand if you feel like you might need a little more convincing. Perhaps one way to do that is to show you some of the companies that are using AWS right now.

This list of companies includes some of the biggest names in the world, so if you were unsure as to whether AWS would work out for you before, we’re pretty sure that you will be when you read this list!

 1. **Netflix -** Netflix uses AWS for almost everything, from video transcoding, recommendation engines to analytics. It allows them to respond to issues faster and deliver a better user experience.
 2. **Disney -** the House of Mouse deals with a lot of data: for streaming and running its parks and resorts. AWS allowed Disney to create a universe of information.
 3. **Pinterest -** Pinterest invested in Amazon Web Services to help them with the growth of users, computing and storage.
 4. **McDonald’s -** AWS helped this fast-food giant through a digital transformation to become more progressive and profitable.
 5. **Epic Games -** a great example of the implementation of AWS into Epic Games was Fortnite. AWS allowed to build new data centres, connect players across the globe and create a lightning-fast gaming experience.
 6. **Reddit -** Reddit uses AWS to host and organise thousands of discussion categories. Amazon services also make room for scaling up cloud usage for the future growth of Reddit users.
 7. **Adobe -** Adobe products like Photoshop or Illustrator are closely integrated with AWS as it helps them to offer multi-terabyte operating environments for their users.
 8. **Airbnb -** being in the ned of fast-scaling cloud services, Airbnb went straight to AWS because of its ease of use and flexibility.
 9. **Samsung -** in 2020, Samsung presented a new communication technology for first responders in emergencies powered by the AWS cloud platform.
10. **Unilever -** migration to AWS helped Unilevel to standarise their processes as they are all now stored in the cloud.

Think about it: if these guys are using AWS for their own benefits, there is no reason that you couldn’t!

<ReadMore> Read also: [The Beginner’s Guide To DevOps | Definition, Principles And The Role Of A DevOps Engineer ](https://selleo.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-devops)</ReadMore>

## Top AWS competitors

It’s time to level the playing field. So far, this article has been all about Amazon Web Services, but we haven’t given any time of day to its competitors. We’re not sure if you have come across these companies before, but they may work out better for you than AWS does!

* Google Cloud
* Microsoft Azure
* IBM Cloud
* Oracle Cloud
* VMware Cloud
* Alibaba Cloud
* [Rackspace](https://techmonitor.ai/what-is/what-is-rackspace#:\~:text=Rackspace%20is%20a%20managed%20cloud,Microsoft%20cloud%2F%20Azure%20and%20OpenStack.)
* [DigitalOcean](https://www.cloudways.com/blog/what-is-digital-ocean/)

Google Cloud has been going for quite a few years now, and Microsoft Azure did not come too long after. These companies probably can do a great job for you in a similar way to how AWS can. On top of this, there are also Alibaba Cloud and IMB Cloud - both recognised and loved across the cloud computing world.

That being said, AWS established itself as one of the most comprehensive (if not *the* most comprehensive) cloud computing platforms out there. It goes without saying, therefore, that AWS is only going to get bigger and better, which means that it could be the undisputable champion of cloud computing in a very short space of time!

<Baner name={contact-us} />

## Summary

By reading this article, you’ve put yourself in the driving seat when it comes to software development and other forms of web projects in the future. Cloud computing is all the rage right now, and it goes without saying that it is only going to get more and more popular.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of companies out there who aren’t using it yet, but this can only be to their own deficit in most cases! Just look at the list of the companies that *are* using it (check back a couple of sections in this article), and you’ll see the kinds of titans who are using the platform.

AWS, or cloud computing as a whole, could really make all the difference as you move your business forwards. And it’s just a couple of clicks away to get started!

Need some help with implementing AWS, or perhaps another cloud computing platform of your choice? Why not consider outsourcing your work on this front? Here at Selleo, we have a huge team of established web developers with plenty of experience in implementing cloud computing solutions, AWS included.

You can reach out to us today with a quick message, and we’ll get back to you to explain how we can help you get the best out of your next project, with the help of AWS. This can save you money, time and really get the best quality out of your work. We’ll speak to you soon!

AWS is now one of the most significant areas of profit for Amazon as a whole company. It’s also one of the biggest names in the whole of big data right now and it’s not going anywhere.

What Is AWS? An Introduction To Amazon Web Services In A Nutshell

\[TOC\]

Now is a great time to get involved with DevOps, and if it’s new to you then look no further than our beginner’s guide to it. We’re going to be taking a look at all of the following throughout this article, so you’ll be clued up and ready to embark on your first DevOps project in no time at all with a little help from Selleo:

* What is DevOps?
* How does DevOps “work”?
* What are the DevOps principles?
* How widely used is DevOps today?
* What skills are needed to use DevOps?
* How you can benefit from DevOps.

First of all, let’s unravel exactly what we mean by ‘DevOps’.

## What is DevOps: Definition Decoded

The term ‘DevOps’ refers to a group of concepts or frameworks for the curation of a project or the development of a piece of software. As you might or might not have guessed already, it’s short for ‘development operations’. This might give you a bit of a clue as to what DevOps is.

The development processes involved within [DevOps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps) as a concept are inspired by agile operations or infrastructure and the value of enhanced collaboration between operations team members and those actually in development. As such, a DevOps team is likely to contain people from both of these.

Another party involved with the creation of DevOps and likely to be a part of any good DevOps team is enterprise systems management (ESM). These system administrators bring in more key skills that are important to the concept as a whole.

This all might sound a little confusing, but rest assured, DevOps practices are easy enough to get to grips with a little more context. So, let’s take a look at some of the key DevOps principles.

<Baner name={devops} />

## 7 Key DevOps Principles

Don’t worry if the first section left you feeling a little stumped. Once you’ve got your head around the key principles involved in DevOps, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of what it actually is.

1. **Encourage collaboration:** the combination of developers and operations being at the core of DevOps as a concept means that collaboration is key, and this trickles down to other areas, too. What could be better than a bunch of talented people working to become better than the sum of themselves as parts?
2. **Always improve:** this collaboration harvests an environment for continuous improvement, and this improvement is made easier by other functions of DevOps such as automation.
3. **Automation:** almost everything involved in DevOps is, or should be, automated. This includes communication, including responding to feedback from customers, updating new systems and provisioning of infrastructure. This means maximum efficiency. Open source code is a big part of this also.
4. **The customer comes first:** we feel that this should be pretty fundamental in any work. That’s how you make the money! One of the best ways to make the customer feel appreciated is to encourage their feedback. DevOps encourages this customer interaction, and this often has great results.
5. **Failure is a good thing:** DevOps culture also almost encourages failure. If you learn from every mistake you make, you’re going to learn a lot more than you would if you simply edited and moved on.
6. **Teamwork makes the dream work:** as well as encouraging collaboration between your operations and development teams, DevOps always looks for strong teamwork between individual members of each team. That’s because everybody involved is required to be involved in most stages, if not all, of the lifecycle of the project.
7. **End-to-end responsibility is the way forward:** the reason for this enhanced teamwork is something called end-to-end responsibility. This means that everyone involved in the project is involved with every stage, at least to the point that they are aware of what’s going on. This also helps them to be more aware of the project’s direction.

**![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/720x595/0eb6146568/7-key-devops-principles.jpg)**

Now you know a little more about the core principles that DevOps are based on, it’s time to take a closer look at the model of it and the practices that go into its functionality.

## How does it work? DevOps Model and Practices

As we mentioned before, the term ‘DevOps’ is a combination of the words ‘development’ and ‘operations’, but these two terms barely scratch the service of what DevOps actually is. To really understand it, we’ll need to take a look at the DevOps model and the practices involved within it.

### The Concept Explained

DevOps is all about speed and efficiency, and to achieve these things, it requires an intricate yet fairly simple model of operation.

The model is a **constant feedback loop** between the operations and development teams of the project and the customers the product is for. As such, it works as a continuous deployment model, which means that the product is constantly adapting and evolving to meet new challenges and to keep up with the fast-paced growth of software development.

There are five key stages to the DevOps model, and once you know them, you’ll have a much better grasp of how DevOps works:

1. **Build:** the first stage of the DevOps model (although not the first stage overall, you’re going to want to make sure you’ve done plenty of research etc. first!) involves the initial build.
2. **Test:** testing is key to DevOps as it enables you to find out any faults with your product before it ends up in the hands of your customers. The better tested it is, the more the customer can focus on critically analysing how good your product actually is.
3. **Release:** now it’s time to send your product out to the world! You could sit back and wait at this point, or you could begin to think about the next update already and get a jump start on things.
4. **Monitor:** at this step, the feedback loop turns around to drive back to the developers from the customers. The ball is in their court now as they check out your product while you keep an eye on this and receive feedback from them.
5. **Plan:** based on this feedback, you’ll always be considering how you can make your product better. Monitoring and planning go hand-in-hand, and once you’ve put your plan for an update together, it’s time to head back to the build phase.

### Best DevOps Practices to Follow

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/720x368/cbe3e3b725/best-devops-practices-to-follow.jpg)

Alongside the DevOps model, we’ll need to understand its practices. All of the items on this list are crucial to a DevOps project rollout, but don’t worry! It’s not as confusing as it seems. In fact, most of these will come quite naturally to you:

* **Agile planning:** Agile software development has become increasingly popular over the years and if you’ve worked with it before then it is likely you will have experienced its benefits. A key DevOps practise indeed considering the versatility that is required from it.
* **Continuous development:** the DevOps model shown above demonstrates how you will constantly be growing your product, and this could not be important in the current software development climate now that software is becoming exponentially better. Continuous development ensures high-quality products.
* **Continuous automated testing:** if you’re constantly building, you’re going to need to be constantly development testing. If you get too ahead of yourself with development but don’t have the testing carried out to back it up, the whole project can grind to a halt.
* **Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD):** this one is similar to development, but refers more specifically to the concept of the continuous delivery of development, testing, deployment and systems administration as a single concept.
* **Continuous deployment:** speaking of employment, this part describes the point at which the software is rolled out to the customers. If customers are constantly being fed new updates etc. then you will constantly be delivering better versions of the product to keep them satisfied as well as always learning from them.
* **Continuous monitoring:** that learning comes from the continuous monitoring of the customers’ usages of your product. Not only will it be great to receive feedback from the costumes, but other key data that you will need to collect includes the time that customers spend on particular pages or functions and what they interact with the most.
* **Infrastructure as code:** often shortened to IaC, this concept details an infrastructure management approach where scripts are used to automate that continuous rollout in stages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 when the product has reached a stage where it has been round the model loop once or twice already. A great example of IaC solution is Terraform, which we discussed further in the post [Why Choose Terraform Over Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack And CloudFormation?](https://selleo.com/blog/why-choose-terraform-over-chef-puppet-ansible-saltstack-and-cloudformation)
* **Containerization:** to lessen the physical bulk data size of your product, containerization is key. It distributes different versions of the project into smaller sections such as files and libraries so that they can be deployed much more quickly when required. Containerization allows to create unified development environment so new people joining the project can board faster.
* **Microservices:** this is an architectural approach where services are split up into a bunch of smaller services. If one were to fail, it would cause far less carnage across the entire project than if the services were more all-encompassing.
* **Cloud infrastructure:** pretty much all organizations use the cloud these days and it’s super useful for DevOps projects, too. This is because it allows for greater flexibility.

<ReadMore> Read also: [How To Run A Winning Kickoff Meeting](https://selleo.com/blog/how-to-run-a-winning-kickoff-meeting) </ReadMore>

## The most Wanted DevOps Tools

Now, it’s time to look at the tools that will be used to help with your project. A lot of these are available open source which will, of course, help with time and your budget:

* **Container orchestration tools:** the first of our important tools for software delivery through DevOps is those of container orchestration tools such as Amazon ECS,  Nomad or Kubernetes.
* **Version control tools:** a lot of people’s choice here is Git, but there are plenty of other options out there if you so wish!
* **Configuration management tools:** here we have [Ansible](https://selleo.com/blog/terraform-vs-ansible) or Chef where the latter is open source and available at your disposal.
* **Deployment & server monitoring tools:** consider Datadog for your deployment and server monitoring needs.
* **CI and deployment automation tools:** there is CircleCI, GitHub Actions, AWS Code Deploy just to name a few.
* **Application performance monitoring tools:** pay close attention to this one! You could consider something like Datadog, New Relic or AppSignal here.
* **Test automation tools:** Test.ai is the classic, go-to for this. But it’s not the only choice.
* **Codeless test automation tools:** we recommend Testim.io!
* **Artifact management tools:** often overlooked but no less important than any of the other tools, you could take a look at Cloud Repo or Sonotype.

## The Roles and Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/720x453/634fd0ffb6/devops-engineer-2.jpg)

Understanding DevOps itself is one important thing, but knowing what a DevOps engineer does for a living and the production environments that he or she works in can be the difference between successfully understanding the concept or not.

### Who is a DevOps Specialist?

We discussed earlier on how being a good team player is a key part of a DevOps engineer’s role, but how does this integrate into their day to day life?

A DevOps engineer’s job changes from project to project but they are effectively responsible for implementing each of the seven key DevOps principles to make sure that each project runs smoothly and efficiently, as well as designing some awesome stuff!

Let’s check out what else DevOps engineers are often responsible for.

### Key Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer

On top of consistently ensuring that continuous development through delivering and testing and adapting and updating, DevOps engineers have to do each of the following:

* Manage infrastructure
* Write specifications and document the project
* Assess the performance of the project and the product while monitoring it consistently
* Deploy cloud usage and manage
* CI/CD automation and management

<ReadMore> Read also: [NodeJS Guide For Developers | Best Practices, Tips And Mistakes To Avoid](https://selleo.com/blog/nodejs-guide-for-developers) </ReadMore>

### How to Hire a qualified DevOps Developer?

So, what do you need to look for when you are on the hunt for your next [DevOps engineer](https://selleo.com/devops-cloud-services)? There are a number of skills that they are going to need to demonstrate, including each of the following as well as any more specific ones for your own work:

* A strong team player through solid communication skills
* A background in tech and strong knowledge in the field
* Programming fluency
* Experience with automation tools
* Confident with database systems

There could be a lot more to add to your own list of qualities to look for, so make sure that you do not take our own list at face value!

<Baner name={software-development} />

## Who’s Adopting DevOps?

Some of the biggest companies in the world are using DevOps for some of the most exciting projects in the world right now. If that’s not enough reason to catch your attention then we don’t know what is!

Some studies show that as many as [74% of companies](https://newrelic.com/devops/what-is-devops) have implemented DevOps frameworks at some point in their existence. That’s quite something. You’re not going to want to be part of the minority on this one!

Those companies include all of the big dogs. Facebook, Amazon and Netflix have each used DevOps quite consistently in their own work, and their success cannot be ignored.

## Why Even Care? The Benefits of DevOps

There are six main benefits to using DevOps for your next product development rollout which, if you haven’t considered before, could be the difference between you deciding to use it or not.

![Img](https://a.storyblok.com/f/86602/720x368/a228bdbc05/benefits.jpg)

DevOps has the potential (and the likelihood) to bring you each of the following awesome benefits:

1. **Speed:** working amongst a team so heavily (as well as other parts of DevOps) ensures high velocity work.
2. **Rapid delivery:** the feedback cycle means that you can improve your product as quickly as, if not quicker than, your competition.
3. **Reliability:** the huge amount of testing that goes into DevOps projects minimises the risk of failure.
4. **Scalability:** the automation part of DevOps means that you can do your best work without having to put in any more time, effort or money than you absolutely have to at any point in the product life cycle.
5. **Improved collaboration:** what could be better than a whole bunch of talented software engineers and operations team members working together to create their best work? We would vouch for, not a lot.
6. **Security:** having high speed combined with multiple controls is an ideal combination to ensure the maximum level of security for your project, product and team members.

## Summary

So, what’s left to know about DevOps? We’ve taken a look at the key principles of it, its model and its practices, some popular tools that developers and other members of the team use to carry it out, the life and times of a DevOps engineer, who uses it and some key benefits of it.

Now, it’s time to figure out how to implement DevOps into your project, and Selleo is here to help.

Selleo has successfully rolled out a whole bunch of DevOps projects for a lot of different clients and we are keen to be involved in yours, too. To find out more about how we can help, [reach out for a consultation](https://selleo.com/contact). It could really be what you need to make your next project kick off!

Now is a great time to get involved with DevOps, and if it’s new to you then look no further than our beginner’s guide to it.

The Beginner’s Guide To DevOps | Definition, Principles And The Role Of A DevOps Engineer

**Terraform vs Ansible, Ansible vs Terraform** - Google search is full of those queries, but are they true? Is there a war between those solutions and you can use only either-or? Or are they, in fact, a great combination and can or even should be used together? This article aims to solve the confusion and once for all answer the question: **Terraform or Ansible**?

This article is based on research as well as the subjective opinions of developers.

## Terraform

According to Terraform’s website

*Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.*

[Terraform is used](https://stackshare.io/stackups/ansible-vs-terraform) by **Slack**, **Twitch** (owned by Amazon, which has its own infrastructure building tools like [Cloud Formation](https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/)), **Uber**, **Starbucks**. It can be integrated with CloudFlare, Heroku, Microsoft Azure or Google Compute Engine.

## Ansible

Ansible is the simplest way to automate and configure apps and IT infrastructure. An enterprise automation platform for the entire IT organization, no matter where you are in your automation journey.

[Ansible is used](https://stackshare.io/stackups/ansible-vs-terraform) by companies like **9gag**, **Zalando** and **Revolut**. It can be integrated with Docker, Amazon EC2 or Kubernetes.

## Who’s the best?

First of all, it is hard to clearly determine which one is better, because, although they are similar, they were created for different purposes.

Terraform is an **orchestration tool** and Ansible is a **configuration management tool**, however, some of their functions overlap, but are not excluding and can be used together.

I came across a great analogy to explain it: **an orchestra of musicians**. Here, Terraform would be a conductor who ensures that the right number of instruments are playing and sound correct.

If there is an issue, the conductor replaces the broken instrument with a working one. We can say that orchestration tools focus on the end result and make sure that the environment stays in a particular “state”. This makes Terraform a fantastic option for environments that require a steady-state.

Ansible - **the configuration management tool** - in such a situation will behave differently. It will work in order to repair the broken instrument instead of replacing it. However, Ansible is able to perform orchestration tasks, but Terraform is thought to be more advanced and generally a better option for it.

Terraform has built-in parallel mechanisms which allow creating a set of resources (within dependency tree) in threads. To achieve the same, Ansible would require to **creatively use async and poll**, which would probably make you do [async blocks](https://www.ansible.com/blog/ansible-performance-tuning) with a wait period between them.

![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/a.storyblok.com/f/86602/764x307/fdc4cb9ccf/parallel_mechanism.png)

## Procedural or Declarative?

Another division in DevOps tools is **procedural vs declarative**. Those categories describe how tools perform their actions. Here, Terraform falls into the declarative group, which means if your defined environment changes, it will be corrected by Terraform.

Going back to **the analogy of an orchestra** - with Terraform you would have to declare how many more (or less) instruments do you want. So if you have 5 instruments and need 5 more, you would lay it in the code. If you need less you would specify how many you want to be removed.

On the other hand, Ansible would be perceived as a **hybrid** as it can perform procedural-style configuration or make use of modules that perform decorative-style. So it is super important to read the documentation and ensure you understand the behaviour expected.

That being said, Terraform is perfect for configuring **cloud infrastructures** and Ansible is used for **configuring servers** within this infrastructure. Many use Terraform to build servers and Ansible to configure them, even though Terraform lacks a provisioning plugin for Ansible. You can also call necessary Ansible roles from within Terraform.

Going through statistics on stackshare.io however, Ansible is much more popular than Terraform scoring over 12k StackOverflow questions and 41k GitHub stars.

## Conclusion

Terraform was designed with immutability in mind. It is a provisioning tool that deals with immutable infrastructures in a native way. This makes it a good choice when you reject configuration management tools. The tool is more intuitive for infrastructure orchestration because it was created for it and all of its updates are dedicated to that.

Ansible is optimized for configuration management and although it can perform orchestration tasks it is better to use the best (and fastest) tool for the given task.

All in all, both Terraform and Ansible can work as **standalone tools** or **work together**, but remember to always use the right tool for a given job.

Terraform vs Ansible, Ansible vs Terraform - Google search is full of those queries, but are they true? Is there a war between those solutions and you can use only either-or? Or are they, in fact, a great combination and can or even should be used together?

Terraform Vs Ansible - Friends Or Foes? Which Should I Choose?

Some time ago, we published an article on[ Infrastructure as a Code](https://selleo.com/blog/infrastructure-as-a-code). This is where we mentioned Terraform for the first time.
Today, I would like to focus explicitly on **Terraform**, explain why should you consider using it and why, in my subjective opinion, is it better than other popular IaC tools like **Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack and CloudFormation**.

Just a quick reminder: Configuration Management, or in other words **Infrastructure as a Code**, is concerned with writing and executing code in such a way to define, deploy and update a given infrastructure. This means that networks, routes, load balancer, compute instances, storage buckets, etc are managed in code.
The main benefits of using IaC are the fact that is speedy and safe thanks to the automation of the deployment provisioning process. It requires less pure SysOps work, but still, it is good to have basic knowledge about the shell, the CIDR notation, basic Linux administration etc.

\[TOC\]

## What is Terraform?

IaC tools can be divided into four general categories: **ad hoc scripts, configuration management tools, server templating tools and server provisioning tools**. The focus of this article - Terraform - is one of the server provisioning tools. This means it is responsible for server creation, contrary to tools that define the code that runs on a server. **Provisioning tools are also used to create databases, firewall settings, SSL certificates, managing Vault policies, GitHub repositories and** **[many others](https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/).**

Terraform in itself is an open-source tool by HashiCorp, written in the Go language. The Go code is compiled into a single binary called. This binary is used to deploy infrastructures or build a server using just a shell. The `terraform` binary makes API calls to Google Cloud, AWS, OpenStack etc. thanks to the Terraform providers maintained by the community.

## Terraform vs Chef

First of all, **Chef is a configuration management tool**, versus the **provisioning tool** that Terraform is. Chef is concerned with installation and management of software on existing servers, while Terraform provisions the servers themselves. In this case, when using Docker or Packer, Terraform is a better choice than a configuration management tool.
What is more, Chef defaults to a mutable infrastructure paradigm leading to hard to diagnose configuration bugs, but **Terraform treats every change as a deployment** of a new service configuration.
**Chef also represents a procedural style** to code writing and requires running a master server for state storing as well as agent software on each configurable server.

<Baner name={software-development} />

## Terraform vs Puppet

Similarly to Chef, Puppet is also **a configuration management tool** used to install and manage software on already existing servers. It also requires a master server for storing the infrastructure state as well as installation of an agent software for installing the latest configuration management updates. Puppet is also 4 years older than Chef (released in 2005).
However, **Puppet has a more declarative style**, just like Terraform.

## Terraform vs Ansible

Ansible, like Chef, represents **a procedural style of coding**. Like the two options above it is a configuration management tool and follows a mutable infrastructure paradigm.
What is undoubtedly the advantage here is the fact that Ansible is represented by a big community with nearly 5k active contributors. It is also highly desirable on the job market.
Just like Terraform, Ansible does not require running a master server in order to store the infrastructure state.

## Terraform vs SaltStack

Although SaltStack is again a configuration management tool it has **a more declarative style**, like Terraform. Like Ansible, Chef and Puppet it is a **mutable infrastructure paradigm**. It requires the installation of agent software and to run a master server. Lately, SaltStack has been gaining an increase in developers’ interest.

## Terraform vs CloudFormation

CloudFormation is similar to Terraform thanks to its declarative style. It is also a provisioning tool, just like Terraform. However, from all the mentioned tools, CloudFormation is the only **non-open-source one**. The tool belongs to AWS services, which means it can only be used within the AWS scope. Most recently, CloudFormation has been gaining a lot of recognition on StackOverflow as well as on the job market.

## Why use Terraform?

**Terraform is open-source**, which means you have access to the code to read it, debug issues and contribute to future releases. Thanks to the community, Terraform gets frequent updates and supports new providers every day.

Terraform must store state about configuration and managed infrastructure. It’s used to map a configuration code to real resources. By default, the state file is stored locally, but it can be stored on different backends eg AWS S3, Consul, Google Cloud Storage or PostgreSQL.

HashiCorp decided to create HCL\* (HashiCorp Configuration Language) to build a structured configuration language that is human and machine-friendly - what more it is fully JSON compatible, provides simple loops, conditions. It gives a lot of power to create a reusable and tested infrastructure. Terraform makes use of plan command which means you can review the changes you are about to apply before applying them as well as supports of cloud providers other than AWS or Google Cloud.

At the 2019 HashiConf features of [Terraform 0.12](https://www.hashicorp.com/resources/a-2nd-tour-of-terraform-0-12) were presented.

Need help with Terraform? Or maybe DevOps? Our [expert team](https://selleo.com/devops) will be happy to help you!

In this article, you will learn why Terraform is a better choice than popular IaC tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack and CloudFormation.

Why Choose Terraform Over Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack And CloudFormation?

Managing servers and infrastructures manually is not a very complicated task, but when you start working with multiple servers, manual configuration is getting more complex and almost unachievable. This is where the notion of Infrastructure as a Code comes in.

### What is IaC?

Infrastructure as a Code is also known as Configuration Management and is an approach that allows management and configuration of physical and virtual machines programmatically. This way, we can define and control the configuration of all servers from one place.

### Pros of using IaC

The advantages of using such approach are, among others:

- no room for manual tasks - configuration of servers is done through a management tool that implements the changes for us whenever we need it

- no dependency on others - usually, any server changes are performed by the IT department since they require admin access. By using IaC it is possible to make changes on our own while the tools will ensure that the changes we make are properly applied to the servers and to our infrastructure

- automation - systems are built, managed and provisioned automatically through the code and the updates are made through changes in the code

- the infrastructure becomes: consistent, testable, maintainable, reusable and extensible

- fewer errors - manual updates can cause problems since they are prone to human error

- the code is also the documentation - there is no need to prepare separate documents with the documentation since all the necessary information is in the code

- source control - we acquire a central place where everybody can put their code, which allows versioning

- faster delivery - thanks to the reusability and flexibility



### Popular IaC tools

There are many tools that can be used to automate the deployments, the most popular being:

- Terraform - allows creating execution plans outlining what will happen when the code will be run, uses own domain-specific language Hashicorp Configuration Language that is JSON-compatible

- Pulumi - helps to define cloud apps and infrastructure in any language and deploy to any cloud

- Ansible - the tool describes how the system and the components relate to each other instead of managing systems independently

- Chef - uses Ruby-based DSL, follows a procedural approach to configuration management where it is necessary to describe the procedures that will result in getting to the desired state

- Puppet - the tool enforces the desired state automatically and fixes incorrect changes, the state of the infrastructure and what is expected of it to do have to be defined

- Docker - helps to create containers that pack the dependencies and the code together, therefore allowing the application to run in any environment

- Saltstack - takes an ‘infrastructure as data’ approach, its declarative configuration patterns are written in Python and are language-agnostic

- AWS CloudFormation - allows coding the infrastructure in order to automate the deployments, it can only be used with AWS

## Conclusions

Infrastructure as a Code is a beneficial approach that will help you manage servers and infrastructures more efficiently and most importantly, automatically. This means, you will experience fewer errors, will deliver faster and gain independence from the IT people. The code you write will become your documentation so you can dedicate the time saved to some other issues.

Managing servers and infrastructures manually is not a very complicated task, but when you start working with multiple servers, manual configuration is getting more complex and almost unachievable. This is where the notion of Infrastructure as a Code comes in.

Infrastructure As A Code

### AWS LAMBDA

AWS has a great set of tools for running your application in the cloud. One of them Amazon calls [Lambda](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/welcome.html).

### INTRO TO LAMBDA

As the service’s name suggests, Lambda is about executing one function with arguments, processing and returning some output. It has an attractive pricing model, as AWS charges you for each started 100ms execution time along with the cost for allocated memory. Each execution has five minutes before timing out. There is also a limitation in memory, up to 1.5GB.

### CREATING A SAMPLE LAMBDA FUNCTION

To create a new function, you need to open AWS console from a browser. You can upload Lambda functions from a terminal console, but let’s keep things simple and execute it from the visual editor.

Let’s head to the [Lambda home page](https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com/lambda/home?region=us-west-2#). The first time you open the page, AWS presents to you a default screen where you can get started with the AWS Lambda service.

**This view offers you various of blueprints. I strongly encourage you to check them all afterwards. There is plenty of sample examples, so it is one of the great ways to start looking into the service.**

For now let’s start with something plainly simple: creating a function which takes our input and displays it in the console. Click the **Skip** button at the bottom right-hand corner of the page  

That takes you to the page where you can preconfigure triggers. Triggers are responsible for starting a function for a certain action. Lambda is a little tightly coupled to other AWS services, and we definitely can take advantage of this. When you click on the square with a greyish striped border, you are presented with a list of other services which can execute the function when there is the event.  

**For instance, such event can be a new file uploaded to S3 or a request made to the API Gateway service. There are lots of possibilities, and that is great. As Lambda offers scalability, you might find that Lambda can act as a scalable back-end for a huge amount of requests.**

Let’s click the **Next** button and move the section about configuring a new function. For this case, we use **Node.js 4.3**. Add a descriptive name for the function, e.g._ProcessingTestData_, create a dummy description, _the description is required_.

**Now you can create the code. Right now there are three ways to put your code into Lambda:**

Upload zipped files  

* Online editor
* Use link to uploaded zipped files to S3

Let’s keep this plainly and edit the function in the browser.  

### FUNCTION STRUCTURE

Lambda requires having exported a function **handler** which can take up to three params:

* _event_ – data passed while executing the function
* _context_ – useful info about runtime
* _callback_ – used for returning data to the caller

We can use _console.log_, and AWS stores Lambda logs in the CloudWatch service.

Now let’s create a new role from the template and assign it appropriate **Role name**:

**In the next section, you can configure memory, timeout and VPC.**

Let’s stick to the default settings. Then click the **Next **button.

Now you can see a concise summary of settings for the Lambda instance. Let’s go and click **Create function**. It takes a while, but after a few seconds AWS redirects you to the page where you can see the function and play with that:

Now we are interested in the **Test** button. The first time you click the button, it opens a modal box, where you can specify dummy data for executing given function. It is an excellent way to test a new or existing functions:

**It is time to edit the dummy data. Our function requires a few params, like in the screen:**

After filling it, click the **Save and test **button in the bottom right-hand corner. AWS executed the function with provided params, and we can see it immediately in the area below code editor:


**Congratulations! You executed your first AWS Lambda function. Now it is time to put this knowledge into practice. Go ahead and create a few AWS functions, connect it with S3 or API Gateway. Play with the samples provided in the new AWS Lambda screen view.**

AWS has a great set of tools for running your application in the cloud. One of them Amazon calls Lambda.

Read our articles on Selleo Blog

Business

Technology

What Is AWS? An Introduction To Amazon Web Services In A Nutshell

The Beginner’s Guide To DevOps | Definition, Principles And The Role Of A DevOps Engineer

Terraform Vs Ansible - Friends Or Foes? Which Should I Choose?

Why Choose Terraform Over Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack And CloudFormation?

Infrastructure As A Code

Intro To AWS Lambda

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