# Infrastructure as code (IaC) · Glossary
Defining and managing cloud and platform infrastructure, such as networks, databases, permissions and compute, through version-controlled configuration files rather than manual changes in a console.
[Glossary](/glossary) · Platform and software engineering

# Infrastructure as code (IaC)

     Defining and managing cloud and platform infrastructure, such as networks, databases, permissions and compute, through version-controlled configuration files rather than manual changes in a console. The same definitions can create identical environments repeatedly.

## Why it matters

     Manually configured infrastructure drifts, is hard to audit and is difficult to recreate after an incident. IaC makes changes reviewable, repeatable and reversible, and gives auditors a clear record of how environments are configured.

     It is also what allows a client to own and operate a platform after delivery, because the environment is described in code rather than in the memory of the people who set it up.

## In practice

     For example, a UK healthtech company might define its production, staging and development environments in IaC, so a security fix to network rules is reviewed once and applied consistently across all three.

## Where Rodan fits

     Rodan builds platforms with infrastructure as code through [Platform and Cloud Engineering](https://rodan.io/platform-cloud-engineering), so clients can own and change them.

## Related terms

- [CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery)](/glossary/ci-cd)

- [YAML](/glossary#yaml)

- [Zero trust](/glossary#zero-trust)

- [Legacy modernisation](/glossary/legacy-modernisation)
HTML: https://rodan.io/glossary/infrastructure-as-code