DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports
Events Video Library
Refcards
Trend Reports

Events

View Events Video Library

Zones

Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

How are you handling the data revolution? We want your take on what's real, what's hype, and what's next in the world of data engineering.

Generative AI has transformed nearly every industry. How can you leverage GenAI to improve your productivity and efficiency?

SBOMs are essential to circumventing software supply chain attacks, and they provide visibility into various software components.

Related

  • Why Traditional CI/CD Falls Short for Cloud Infrastructure
  • The Missing Infrastructure Layer: Why AI's Next Evolution Requires Distributed Systems Thinking
  • The Bare Metal Bet That Made Our Multiplayer Platform Hum
  • The Evolution of Scalable and Resilient Container Infrastructure

Trending

  • DZone's Article Submission Guidelines
  • Squid Game: The Clean Code Trials — A Java Developer's Survival Story
  • Microservice Madness: Debunking Myths and Exposing Pitfalls
  • The Evolution of Software Integration: How MCP Is Reshaping AI Development Beyond Traditional APIs
  1. DZone
  2. Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
  3. Maintenance
  4. Infrastructure Provisioning – What is it and why is it important?

Infrastructure Provisioning – What is it and why is it important?

By 
Sean Hull user avatar
Sean Hull
·
Jul. 11, 11 · News
Likes (2)
Comment
Save
Tweet
Share
12.7K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

In the old days...

You would have a closet in your startup company with a rack of computers.  Provisioning involved:

  1. Deciding on your architectural direction, what, where & how
  2. Ordering the new hardware
  3. Waiting weeks for the packages to arrive
  4. Setup the hardware, wire things together, power up
  5. Discover some component is missing, or failed and order replacement
  6. Wait longer...
  7. Finally get all the pieces setup
  8. Configure software components and go

Along came some industrious folks who realized power and data to your physical location wasn't reliable.  So datacenters sprang up.  With data centers, most of the above steps didn't change except between steps 3 & 4 you would send your engineers out to the datacenter location.  Trips back and forth ate up time and energy.

Then along came managed hosting.  Managed hosting saved companies a lot of headache, wasted man hours, and other resources.  They allowed your company to do more of what it does well, run the business, and less on managing hardware and infrastructure.  Provisioning now became:

  1. Decide on architecture direction
  2. Call hosting provider and talk to sales person
  3. Wait a day or two
  4. Setup & configure software components and go

Obviously this new state of affairs improved infrastructure provisioning dramatically.  It simplified the process and sped it up as well.  What's more a managed hosting provider could keep spare parts and standard components on hand in much greater volume than a small firm.  That's a big plus.  This evolution continued because it was a win-win for everyone.  The only downside was when engineers made mistakes, and finger pointing began.  But despite all of that, a managed hosting provider which does only that, can do it better, and more reliably than you can yourself.

So where are we in present day?  We are all either doing, or looking out cloud provisioning of infrastructure.  What's cloud provisioning?  It is a complete paradigm shift, but along the same trajectory as what we've described above.  Now you removed all the waiting.  No waiting for sales team, or the ordering process.  That's automatic.  No waiting for engineers to setup the servers, they're already setup.  They are allocated by your software and scripts.  Even the setup and configuration of software components, Operating System and services to run on that server - all automatic.

This is such a dramatic shift, that we are still feeling the affects of it.  Traditional operations teams have little experience with this arrangement, and perhaps little trust in virtual servers.  Business units are also not used to handing the trigger to infrastructure spending over to ops teams or to scripts and software.

However the huge economic pressures continue to push firms to this new model, as well as new operational flexibility.  Gartner predicts this trend will only continue. The advantages of cloud infrastructure provisioning include:

  1. Metered payment - no huge outlay of cash for new infrastructure
  2. Infrastructure as a service - scripted components automate & reduced manual processes
  3. Devops - Manage infrastructure like code with version control and reproduceability
  4. Take unused capacity offline easily & save on those costs
  5. Disaster Recovery is free - reuse scripts to build standard components
  6. Easily meet seasonal traffic requirements - spinup additional servers instantly

On Quora Sean Hull asks - What is infrastructure provisioning and why is it important?

Infrastructure

Published at DZone with permission of Sean Hull. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Related

  • Why Traditional CI/CD Falls Short for Cloud Infrastructure
  • The Missing Infrastructure Layer: Why AI's Next Evolution Requires Distributed Systems Thinking
  • The Bare Metal Bet That Made Our Multiplayer Platform Hum
  • The Evolution of Scalable and Resilient Container Infrastructure

Partner Resources

×

Comments

The likes didn't load as expected. Please refresh the page and try again.

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Support and feedback
  • Community research
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Core Program
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
  • Suite 100
  • Nashville, TN 37211
  • [email protected]

Let's be friends: