Why infrastrucutre as Code is important
There are a lot of reasons as to why we should use Infrastructure as Code. Consistency and improved speed are typcially among that list. In the end, however, it always comes down to a single thing that is common with all of those reasons.
IT Automation has become really popular within the past decade. Cloud based deployments have fueled this popularity. The amount of webpages that deal with Ansible or Terraform are a sign for that.
Everyone in the IT business knows about the importance of IT Automation today. On every corner we can read about the benefits such as more speed, repeatability, visibility and security. How come that still a lot of companies use excuses like “There is no need to change. We are doing the same things for 30 years now and we always have been successful with it”? On the other hand there are companies who are willing to automate but don’t get ahead with it because there alaways seems to be somthing more important to do.
Knowing is not enough
We should question how Google and Amazon were able to use IT Automation to build completely new business models from scratch. They have long since left behind the companies that “are doing the same things for 30 years now”. So what makes them different. Are those people that work at Google or Amazon different from others? Do they have more than 24 hours available each day? Are they more intelligent? Do they have more discipline? No they don’t.
The difference doesn’t have anything to with with knowledge. Today we can get every knowledge we desire within the instant of a moment. But knowledge does not help us. We have to understand it.
Knowledge is something we have in our brains but understanding happens in the heart. Knowing that smoking is unhealthy does not stop people from doing it but understanding that they are going to die from it will.
IT Automation is hard work that needs a lot of consistency and resilience. It needs 100% commitment and usually comes with a lot of failures. In order to succeed we need a strong reason.
Business owners and managers tend to focus on speed. “We have do do things quicker to optimize cost efficiency.” Technicans tend to focus on quality: “We have to do things properly because we have to maintain it”. This battle goes on and on and will not come to an end until we understand that we should agree on ONE goal and that is neither money nor quality.
Both speed and maintainability are legitimate goals. It looks like they are opposing each other and we can have either one or the other. If these are our reasons as to why we do something we are most likely to fail.
We have to find a reason as to why we are doing what we are doing. And a strong WHY is always something that is in our heart, not in our brains. Once we understand that our WHY means that we have to create value that makes a difference in the world we are working on a completely new level.
We ask ourselves what creates value and may come to the conclusion that it is productivity. Productivity is the product of quality and speed. We have to focus on both. If we neglect either of both that will move us away from our WHY.
This is what Google and Amazon are doing. Having a strong WHY is the only thing that can make IT Automation a success.
Knowledge is something that happens in our brain. But in order to understand we have to use our hearts
