[AG.DEP.4] Codify environment vending

Category: RECOMMENDED

A core benefit of the DevOps model is team autonomy and reducing cross-team dependencies. Through infrastructure as code (IaC), teams can establish and manage their environments autonomously in a self-service manner, shifting from traditional methods where operations teams would oversee these responsibilities.

By provisioning environments, and the accounts operating them, as IaC or API calls, teams are empowered with the flexibility to create environments according to their specific requirements and ways of working. Codifying the environment provisioning process provides teams with the flexibility to create both persistent and ephemeral environments based on their specific needs and workflows. In particular, this code-based approach enables the easy creation of ephemeral environments that can be automatically setup and torn down when not in use, optimizing resource utilization and cost.

Use shared libraries or services that allow teams to request and manage environments using IaC. These libraries should encapsulate best practices for environment configuration and should be designed to be used directly in deployment pipelines, enabling individual teams to manage their environments autonomously. This reduces the need for manual requests or interactions with a developer portal, as well as reduces the reliance on platform teams for provisioning and managing environments on their behalf. This approach promotes consistency and reduces overhead from cross-team collaboration.

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