DORA and DevOps

Infrastructure as code

Also known as Infrastructure as code metric, Infrastructure as code in DevOps

By WeavePublished 2 min read

Definition

Infrastructure as code is a software delivery concept used to describe a specific event, interval, control, or operating condition in the path from source change to production behavior. A useful definition names the boundary, unit, and decision the measure supports.

How to use the concept

For infrastructure as code, establish a baseline before changing the process. Compare like with like, preserve the definition over time, and pair the signal with reliability and quality evidence. A metric is most useful when the people who act on it also understand how it was produced.

A concrete delivery example

Imagine a change moving through build, review, validation, and production. The timeline shows 20 minutes of execution, 90 minutes of queueing, and one overnight approval wait. A infrastructure as code report should preserve those stages so the team can address the dominant delay instead of shortening a convenient but minor step.

Limitations and interpretation

This signal is sensitive to instrumentation. Missing deployments, duplicate webhooks, hidden retries, and inconsistent labels can make infrastructure as code look better or worse. Preserve event-level evidence and record the policy used to include or exclude cases.

Before acting on infrastructure as code, compare the current observation with a compatible baseline and ask which underlying event produced it. Keep the raw records, counting policy, and ownership visible. When the signal changes, inspect the surrounding workflow for queueing, rework, failed checks, or recovery work. That practice makes the glossary term useful for diagnosis rather than a label attached to a dashboard.

How this relates to Weave

Weave's Engineering Intelligence can help teams examine infrastructure as code alongside code, pull request, quality, and delivery context. That view is useful for finding the workflow behind a result and deciding what to investigate next. The underlying repository, deployment, incident, or observability system remains the source of truth for the event, and teams should confirm the available integrations before relying on any field.

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Sources and further reading

  1. DORA software delivery performance metrics