Introduction

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to design and implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions for Azure. We’ll cover:

1. Configuration Management
   – Definition and core concepts
   – Key benefits in Azure
   – Overview of Azure configuration management tools and best practices

2. Desired State Configuration (DSC)
   – Azure Automation State Configuration
   – Azure Resource Manager (ARM) and Bicep
   – Azure Automanage Machine Configuration

3. Building Your IaC Strategy
   – Fundamental IaC principles
   – Leveraging source control for infrastructure definitions
   – Automating testing and deployment pipelines

4. Azure Deployment Environments
   – Understanding on-demand, self-service infrastructure
   – Comparing blue-green, canary, and rolling deployment strategies
   – Configuring Azure DevOps for automated provisioning
   – Monitoring and maintaining deployment environments

Let’s dive into each of these topics step by step.

1. Configuration Management in Azure

Configuration management ensures that your application infrastructure remains consistent, secure, and compliant. By defining your environment as code, you can:

• Prevent configuration drift
• Enforce security standards
• Automate patching and updates
• Scale environments reliably

Key Azure Configuration Management Tools

2. Desired State Configuration (DSC)

Desired State Configuration (DSC) is a PowerShell-based platform that enables you to declaratively define and maintain system configurations.

• Azure Automation State Configuration: Host DSC pull servers in Azure to manage Windows and Linux machines.
• ARM & Bicep: Use ARM templates or Bicep files to define the desired state of Azure resources.
• Azure Automanage Machine Configuration: Simplify VM configuration with managed services that automatically apply best practices.

3. Developing an IaC Strategy

A solid IaC strategy encompasses:

1. Core Concepts
   – Declarative vs. imperative approaches
   – Idempotency and immutability
2. Source Control Integration
   – Storing templates in Git repositories
   – Branching strategies (e.g., GitFlow, trunk-based development)
3. Pipeline Automation
   – Unit testing templates (e.g., ARM-TTK)
   – Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) workflows in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions

4. Designing Azure Deployment Environments

When architecting deployment environments in Azure, consider:

• Environment Types: Development, testing, staging, production

• Deployment Strategies:

  Strategy	Description	Use Case
  Blue-Green	Two identical environments, switch traffic	Zero-downtime deployments
  Canary	Incremental rollout to a subset of users	Mitigate risk for new features
  Rolling	Update small sets of instances sequentially	Controlled, progressive upgrades

• Self-Service Provisioning: Configure Azure DevOps pipelines and templates to allow teams to spin up environments on demand.

• Monitoring & Maintenance: Use Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Policy for ongoing health checks and compliance.

Next Steps

Now that you have an overview of Azure IaC concepts and tools, we’ll begin our deep dive into configuration management technologies. In the following section, we’ll define configuration management in detail and demonstrate how to get started with Azure Automation State Configuration.