Late last year, startup Platform Engineering Labs made waves in the world of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) by introducing a new IaC platform, called Formae, available initially on Amazon Web Services. This week, Platform Engineering Labs‘ platform gets (beta) support from additional cloud platforms, including Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and OVHcloud. The company has also released new AI-enhanced software for managing infrastructure tooling, called the Platform for Infrastructure Builders.
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Platform Engineering Labs has released formae, an open-source infrastructure-as-code platform designed to address limitations in existing tools, focusing on automatic discovery, codification of existing infrastructure, and a reconcile/patch workflow. It uses PKL instead of HCL and targets reducing drift and complexity.
Eran Bibi, co-founder and chief product officer at Firefly, discusses two open-source AI tools, AIaC and K8sGPT, that aim to reduce DevOps friction by automating tasks such as generating IaC code and troubleshooting Kubernetes issues.
- AIaC (AI as Code):
An open source command-line interface (CLI) tool that enables developers to generate IaC (Infrastructure as Code) templates, shell scripts, and more using natural language prompts.
Example: Generating a secure Dockerfile for a Node.js application by describing requirements in natural language.
Benefits: Reduces the need for manual coding and errors, accelerating the development process.
- K8sGPT:
An open source tool developed by Alex Jones within the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) sandbox.
Uses AI to analyze and diagnose issues within Kubernetes clusters, providing human-readable explanations and potential fixes.
Example: Diagnosing a Kubernetes pod stuck in a pending state and suggesting corrective actions.
Benefits: Simplifies troubleshooting, reduces the expertise required, and empowers less experienced users to manage clusters effectively.
An in-depth exploration of using Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate Terraform code for infrastructure as code (IaC), analyzing the capabilities and limitations of LLMs in this domain.
All models struggled with:
- Variable usage (hardcoded values)
- IAM configuration (permissions)
- Security group management
- Target group configuration
While LLMs are promising for IaC, they can be helpful tools for developers.