What is a best practice for automation that assists in providing reliable and secure infrastructure?

Implementing infrastructure as code is a best practice for automation that significantly enhances the reliability and security of infrastructure. This approach allows you to define and manage your infrastructure through code, which brings several advantages.

First, infrastructure as code facilitates consistency and repeatability. By describing your infrastructure through code, you can ensure the same configurations are applied every time an environment is provisioned, reducing the likelihood of human error that can occur with manual configurations. This consistency helps to maintain the integrity and security of your environments.

Second, the use of version control for infrastructure code allows for better tracking of changes and the ability to revert to previous configurations if necessary. This is particularly important in maintaining compliance and auditing, as all changes can be monitored and reviewed.

Additionally, automation through infrastructure as code can easily integrate with security policies and practices. For example, compliance checks can be embedded within the deployment process, ensuring that security best practices are automatically enforced whenever new resources are created or existing ones are modified.

This approach stands in contrast to manual configurations, which are more prone to errors and inconsistencies, and increased manual oversight, which adds complexity and slows down deployment processes. Limiting software updates would generally compromise security rather than enhance it, as keeping software up to date is essential for protecting against