Description

This curriculum spans the technical and operational rigor of a multi-workshop infrastructure automation program, matching the depth required to redesign provisioning workflows across networking, security, compliance, and operations in a large-scale cloud migration.

Module 1: Assessing On-Premises Infrastructure for Automation Readiness

Evaluate legacy system dependencies that prevent idempotent provisioning, such as hardcoded IP addresses in application configurations.
Inventory configuration drift across server fleets by analyzing configuration management database (CMDB) accuracy versus actual state.
Classify workloads based on statefulness, compliance requirements, and restart tolerance to determine automation sequencing.
Identify manual operational runbooks that must be converted into automated workflows before migration.
Assess patching cycles and OS version fragmentation to determine baseline image standardization requirements.
Determine ownership boundaries across teams for systems that span multiple business units or domains.

Module 2: Designing Idempotent Infrastructure-as-Code Templates

Select between Terraform and AWS CloudFormation based on multi-cloud requirements and team proficiency with declarative syntax.
Structure modules to separate network, security, and application layers while enforcing input validation and output exposure.
Implement remote state storage with state locking to prevent concurrent modifications in team environments.
Define reusable variable sets for environment-specific parameters (e.g., dev, staging, prod) without exposing secrets.
Integrate linters and static analysis tools (e.g., TFLint, Checkov) into CI pipelines to enforce naming and security policies.
Version control template changes and align version tags with application release cycles for auditability.

Module 3: Integrating Secrets Management with Provisioning Workflows

Configure short-lived credentials via HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager instead of embedding long-term keys in templates.
Map IAM roles to service identities during provisioning to minimize reliance on static access keys.
Implement dynamic secret injection into EC2 user data or container init containers using sidecar patterns.
Enforce secret rotation policies and integrate rotation triggers into infrastructure redeployment schedules.
Restrict secret access using least-privilege policies tied to instance roles or service accounts.
Audit secret access logs to detect anomalous retrieval patterns during or after provisioning events.

Module 4: Automating Network and Security Provisioning

Automate VPC peering and route table updates across accounts while validating for routing conflicts.
Generate security group rules from application dependency maps to minimize overly permissive rules.
Enforce network segmentation by automating AWS Network Firewall or Azure Firewall rule deployment.
Synchronize DNS records in private and public zones during environment spin-up using automated scripts.
Integrate infrastructure provisioning with SIEM systems to log network configuration changes in real time.
Validate compliance with firewall change control policies by requiring peer review before rule deployment.

Module 5: Orchestrating Multi-Environment Deployments

Design deployment pipelines that promote infrastructure changes from dev to production using gated approvals.
Maintain environment parity by using the same templates across stages with parameter overrides.
Implement blue-green infrastructure switching at the VPC or subnet level to reduce cutover risk.
Automate environment teardown schedules for non-production instances to control cost and sprawl.
Track environment ownership and purpose in tagging policies to support chargeback and cleanup.
Handle regional failover configurations by pre-provisioning standby resources in secondary regions.

Module 6: Managing Configuration Drift and State Drift

Deploy agents (e.g., AWS Systems Manager, Ansible) to detect and report configuration changes made outside IaC.
Define remediation policies for drift: auto-correct, alert, or block based on resource criticality.
Integrate drift detection into compliance audits and generate reports for regulatory evidence.
Use immutable infrastructure patterns to eliminate drift by replacing instances instead of patching.
Monitor Terraform state file consistency with actual cloud resources using periodic plan executions.
Establish rollback procedures when automated drift correction causes service disruption.

Module 7: Implementing Governance and Change Control

Enforce policy-as-code using Open Policy Agent or AWS Config rules to reject non-compliant resource requests.
Require pull request reviews and automated testing before merging infrastructure code to main branch.
Integrate provisioning workflows with ITSM tools to link change tickets with deployment records.
Limit who can approve production environment changes based on job function and compliance scope.
Log all provisioning actions in centralized audit trails with user, timestamp, and resource details.
Conduct periodic access reviews for privileged roles used in automation pipelines to prevent privilege creep.

Module 8: Monitoring, Logging, and Cost Optimization in Automated Provisioning

Deploy monitoring agents during instance creation to ensure immediate visibility into new resources.
Tag all provisioned resources with cost center, project, and environment metadata for cost allocation.
Set up automated alerts for unexpected resource creation (e.g., large instance types, public S3 buckets).
Integrate cost estimation tools (e.g., Infracost) into CI pipelines to preview spend impact of changes.
Automate rightsizing recommendations by analyzing performance metrics post-provisioning.
Generate weekly reports on orphaned or untagged resources to support cleanup automation.