Infrastructure as Code: Technology Review and Research Challenges

Claus Pahl, Niyazi Gokberk Gunduz, Övgüm Can Sezen, Ali Ghamgosar, Nabil El Ioini

2025

Abstract

The quality of software management in infrastructure operations for application software is important as automation in software operations continues to grow. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) refers to a systematic, technology-supported approach to manage deployment infrastructure for software applications. Sample contexts are general software automation, but also cloud and edge and various software-defined networking applications. DevOps (development and operations) practices, which are already applied in the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) context, need to be extended to cover the whole IaC life cycle from code generation to dynamic, automated control. The ultimate objective would range from IaC generation to full self-adaptation of IaC code in an automated setting. We review available IaC technologies based on a comprehensive comparison framework to capture the state-of-the-art. We also introduce an IaC-specific DevOps process. This serves as a basis to identify open research challenges. A discussion of defect categories is at the centre of this process.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Pahl C., Gunduz N., Sezen Ö., Ghamgosar A. and El Ioini N. (2025). Infrastructure as Code: Technology Review and Research Challenges. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER; ISBN 978-989-758-747-4, SciTePress, pages 151-158. DOI: 10.5220/0013247700003950

in Bibtex Style

@conference{closer25,
author={Claus Pahl and Niyazi Gunduz and Övgüm Sezen and Ali Ghamgosar and Nabil El Ioini},
title={Infrastructure as Code: Technology Review and Research Challenges},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER},
year={2025},
pages={151-158},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013247700003950},
isbn={978-989-758-747-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - Volume 1: CLOSER
TI - Infrastructure as Code: Technology Review and Research Challenges
SN - 978-989-758-747-4
AU - Pahl C.
AU - Gunduz N.
AU - Sezen Ö.
AU - Ghamgosar A.
AU - El Ioini N.
PY - 2025
SP - 151
EP - 158
DO - 10.5220/0013247700003950
PB - SciTePress