Managing infrastructure via config files, not manual steps
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi) rather than manual processes. It enables reproducibility, version control, and automated deployment of environments.
A startup uses Terraform to define their entire AWS setup — VPCs, databases, load balancers — in code. Spinning up a staging environment takes 2 minutes instead of 2 days.