Infrastructure as Code Without Code
JustDeploy is a low code, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) accelerator which helps you deploy your cloud infrastructure quickly, securely and to best practice. Unlike many other IaC tools, there is no requirement to learn a new coding language, you can use common formats, such as JSON and YAML to describe your deployment and well known command line tools like Powershell and Python to validate and deploy your infrastructure.
For over 30 years I have been building infrastructure. Over this time, I have tried many products, both native and agnostic, imperative and declarative, but never really found the right tool. They always seemed to fall short of expectations in some way or another for any infrastructure project, but especially data projects. Many IaC tools require a new language or have complex data models and are not ideal for small businesses or even rapid deployment by the most experienced devops engineer.
Over my long career I have accumulated a lot of scripts, ideas and knowledge building infrastructure, but never really had a good framework to put these all together into a solution which allows me to share. So this my attempt to do just that, offer my scripts, my knowledge, and build the perfect community IaC cloud tool, if there is such a thing!
All IaC tools effectively use the same Cloud API's, but what sets them apart, is how they use them and the intelligence built into the product. Here are just some of the ways I think JustDeploy stands out from the crowd.
Describe your deployment using humanly readable YAML files and other familiar formats. Our no code approach means no need to learn a new proprietary language. Just follow a simple data model.
Traditional IaC tools are not intelligent and you will need to know the low level technical detail. JustDeploy will abstract this allowing you to specify just the higher level details.
Consistency across clouds and even within clouds is important when learning. Large cloud teams result in inconsistencies even within the same cloud. We abstract this to provide a clear consistent model.
Many IaC tools will not install or configure data as part of your deployment and you will need another tool for configuration. JustDeploy offers a common framework to install and configure SQL Server.
JustDeploy uses cloud agnostic methods such as YAML, Powershell and Python, no need to use cloud specific tools like Azure ARM or AWS Cloudformation. JustDeploy can deploy currently to Azure, with AWS and VMware coming soon.
The next natural step is to offer database migrations through the tool using the same methodology as we use to deploy infrastructure. Keep watching for some new ideas on this topic.