An Overview of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Performance and Availability Assessment on Google Cloud Platform

This paper presents the results of an exploratory study on the performance and availability of two prominent Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools - Google Cloud Deployment Manager and Terraform. The Deployment Manager is native to Google Cloud Services while Terraform is not. The study assesses the deployment and management of cloud resources by using these tools, and examines their integration benefits, flexibility, and multi-cloud capabilities. It highlights Terraform’s consistently faster resource destruction times compared to Google Cloud Deployment Manager, as evidenced by tests using the Linux ‘time’ command, providing insights into their operational efficiency and adaptability in cloud environments. Our findings indicate that the native Google Cloud Deployment Manager better integrates with its resources. In contrast, Terraform is versatile, provides better flexibility and deploys faster. Its independence is more useful in working with various cloud environments – and is not limited to GCP. Additionally, to gain insight, this study discusses the benefits and inherent challenges associated with IaC. This paper underlines the significance of technical expertise in effectively leveraging these tools for cloud infrastructure management.