Automation & Immutable Infrastructure

SecureCart’s e-commerce platform must be resilient, scalable, and secure while ensuring reproducibility, consistency, and minimal manual intervention. AWS enables Automation & Immutable Infrastructure to achieve reliable deployments, minimize configuration drift, and enhance security.

✔ Why does SecureCart implement Automation & Immutable Infrastructure?

• Reduces human errors by automating infrastructure provisioning and deployments.

• Ensures consistency across environments by enforcing infrastructure as code (IaC).

• Improves security by preventing unauthorized changes and enforcing immutability.

• Enhances scalability by dynamically provisioning and managing resources.

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🔹 Step 1: Understanding Immutable Infrastructure

✔ What is Immutable Infrastructure? Immutable Infrastructure means servers and applications are not modified after deployment—instead, new instances are launched when updates are needed.

✔ Benefits of Immutable Infrastructure: ✅ Eliminates configuration drift – Every deployment is fresh and identical. ✅ Improves security – Prevents unauthorized changes to running instances. ✅ Enhances rollback strategies – Deployments can be reverted by launching a previous version.

✔ AWS Services for Immutable Infrastructure:

Service	Purpose	SecureCart Use Case
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)	Pre-configured OS & software snapshots for EC2 instances.	New versions of SecureCart’s checkout service are deployed using updated AMIs.
AWS Auto Scaling Groups	Automatically replaces unhealthy instances with fresh ones.	Ensures SecureCart’s EC2 instances are always running the latest configurations.
AWS Lambda	Serverless compute runs stateless, immutable functions.	Handles API requests and backend tasks without persistent infrastructure.
Amazon ECS Fargate	Runs containers without managing EC2 instances.	Deploys immutable microservices that are replaced instead of modified.

✅ Best Practices: ✔ Use pre-baked AMIs to deploy fully configured EC2 instances. ✔ Ensure all changes are deployed as new instances instead of modifying existing ones. ✔ Use containers and serverless architectures for true immutability.

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🔹 Step 2: Infrastructure Automation with Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

✔ Why? – SecureCart avoids manual configurations by using automation tools for repeatable, consistent infrastructure provisioning.

✔ AWS Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools:

IaC Tool	Purpose	SecureCart Use Case
AWS CloudFormation	Defines AWS infrastructure as code templates.	Launches EC2, VPC, and RDS instances consistently across environments.
Terraform	Open-source IaC tool for multi-cloud environments.	Manages SecureCart’s AWS resources with version-controlled configurations.
AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit)	Defines infrastructure using high-level programming languages.	Developers write AWS infrastructure in TypeScript instead of JSON/YAML.
AWS OpsWorks	Automates configuration management using Chef & Puppet.	Maintains application configurations without manual intervention.

✅ Best Practices: ✔ Store IaC templates in a version control system (e.g., Git). ✔ Use parameterized CloudFormation stacks for reusability. ✔ Enforce automated testing of infrastructure code before deployment.

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🔹 Step 3: Automating Deployments with CI/CD Pipelines

✔ Why? – SecureCart uses CI/CD pipelines to automate software releases while reducing downtime and risk.

AWS Service	Purpose	SecureCart Use Case
AWS CodePipeline	Automates the CI/CD process for infrastructure and applications.	Builds, tests, and deploys new SecureCart API versions.
AWS CodeBuild	Compiles source code and runs tests automatically.	Validates new application code before deployment.
AWS CodeDeploy	Manages automated deployments with rollback capabilities.	Ensures safe deployments for SecureCart’s EC2 instances and Lambda functions.
AWS CodeCommit	Version control repository for source code.	Stores SecureCart’s application and infrastructure code securely.

✅ Best Practices: ✔ Use automated deployment pipelines to prevent manual errors. ✔ Implement rollback strategies for failed deployments. ✔ Deploy in stages using blue/green or canary deployment methods.

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🔹 Step 4: Enforcing Immutable Deployments with Containers & Serverless

✔ Why? – SecureCart uses containerized and serverless architectures to enhance automation and immutability.

✔ AWS Container & Serverless Deployment Strategies:

Deployment Strategy	Purpose	SecureCart Implementation
Blue/Green Deployment	Deploys a new version alongside the old version and switches traffic when ready.	Switches to a new API version only after testing is complete.
Canary Deployment	Gradually shifts traffic to the new version while monitoring stability.	Releases new product search algorithms to 5% of users before full rollout.
Rolling Updates	Gradually replaces instances with new versions.	Deploys incremental updates to SecureCart’s Fargate containers.

✅ Best Practices: ✔ Use ECS and Lambda for stateless, immutable deployments. ✔ Deploy new versions without modifying existing infrastructure. ✔ Monitor deployments with Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray.

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🔹 Step 5: Monitoring & Compliance for Automated Infrastructure

✔ Why? – SecureCart monitors its automated infrastructure to detect issues and ensure security.

AWS Monitoring Tool	Purpose	SecureCart Use Case
Amazon CloudWatch	Monitors performance and resource metrics.	Tracks API latency and auto-scaling triggers.
AWS Config	Continuously audits AWS resource configurations.	Ensures all EC2 instances follow immutable infrastructure rules.
AWS Systems Manager	Automates operational tasks across AWS resources.	Schedules patch updates for EC2 instances automatically.
AWS Security Hub	Centralized security compliance and threat detection.	Detects policy violations in SecureCart’s automated infrastructure.

✅ Best Practices: ✔ Monitor IaC drift using AWS Config and AWS Systems Manager. ✔ Implement security compliance checks as part of CI/CD pipelines. ✔ Enable logging and alerts for infrastructure changes.

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🚀 Summary

✔ Use Immutable Infrastructure principles to prevent unauthorized changes. ✔ Automate infrastructure provisioning with CloudFormation, Terraform, and CDK. ✔ Implement CI/CD pipelines with AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy. ✔ Use serverless and containerized architectures to enhance immutability. ✔ Monitor infrastructure state and enforce compliance with AWS Config and Security Hub.

Scenario:

SecureCart’s infrastructure team wants to eliminate manual intervention in recovery scenarios by implementing automated, immutable infrastructure.

Key Learning Objectives:

✅ Automate infrastructure deployments using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) ✅ Use AWS Auto Scaling for workload self-healing ✅ Implement immutable infrastructure with AMIs and containers

Hands-on Labs:

1️⃣ Deploy Auto Scaling Groups for Self-Healing Workloads 2️⃣ Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery for Automated Failover 3️⃣ Implement Terraform to Automate HA Architecture Deployment

🔹 Outcome: SecureCart ensures resilient infrastructure that automatically recovers from failures.