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Cloud Engineering Concepts Explained

Plain-English explainers of infrastructure as code, DevOps, CI/CD, Kubernetes, platform engineering, secrets management, and other cloud engineering topics.

Core concepts

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Infrastructure as code (IaC) provisions cloud infrastructure with code instead of consoles. Learn how IaC works, declarative vs. imperative, and top tools.

Zack Chase Zack Chase 20 min read

What is Pulumi?

Discover what Pulumi is, how it works, and why it's revolutionizing infrastructure as code with familiar programming languages.

Asaf Ashirov Asaf Ashirov 15 min read

What Is Infrastructure as Software?

Infrastructure as Software is IaC written in general-purpose programming languages. Learn how it differs from DSL-based IaC and where it fits in practice.

Cam Soper Cam Soper 11 min read

What is DevOps?

DevOps combines software development and IT operations to ship faster and more reliably. Learn lifecycle, CI/CD, automation, testing, and security.

James Denyer James Denyer 15 min read

What Is DevOps Automation?

DevOps automation can be key to consistent and scalable workflows. Learn how engineering teams can ship faster and more reliably with DevOps automation.

James Denyer James Denyer 10 min read

What is Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)?

Learn about CI/CD practices that improve dev process with automation for effective, rapid software delivery.

James Denyer James Denyer 6 min read

What is Platform Engineering?

Understand what platform engineering is, along with the main benefits and importance for modern application development.

Christian Nunciato Christian Nunciato 13 min read

What is an Internal Developer Platform (IDP)?

How internal developer platforms (IDPs) work: golden paths, self-service infrastructure, architecture, key components, and how to build or adopt one.

Sarah Hughes Sarah Hughes 12 min read

What Is Policy as Code?

Policy as code applies software engineering practices to infrastructure governance. Learn what it is, how it works, the top tools, and how to enforce it.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 18 min read

What is Configuration Management?

Learn about what configuration management is and why configuration management is instrumental in maintaining the health and consistency of software systems.

Scott Lowe Scott Lowe 5 min read

What is Cloud Security?

Cloud security is the practice of protecting cloud workloads, data, and identities. Learn the shared responsibility model, key risks, and proven controls.

Cam Soper Cam Soper 10 min read

What Is Agentic Infrastructure?

Agentic infrastructure is cloud infrastructure that AI agents provision, govern, and operate through code. Learn what it is, how it works, and how to build it.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 15 min read

What Is Immutable Infrastructure?

Immutable infrastructure means never modifying a running server—you replace it with a new versioned image. Learn how it works and why it stops drift.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

What Is Infrastructure Drift?

Infrastructure drift is when live cloud resources diverge from your IaC code. Learn what causes it, how to detect it, and how to reconcile it safely.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

What is Serverless?

Understand serverless architectures, along with some of the benefits of using serverless architectures for modern application development

Scott Lowe Scott Lowe 5 min read

What Is Cloud Infrastructure Autoscaling?

Autoscaling adds and removes cloud capacity automatically. Learn horizontal vs vertical, reactive vs predictive, the major cloud services, and common pitfalls.

Cam Soper Cam Soper 10 min read

What is YAML?

YAML is a data serialization language that has steadily increased in popularity. Discover how to use YAML with Pulumi today.

Kat Cosgrove Kat Cosgrove 4 min read

Infrastructure as code in practice

Infrastructure as Code for DevOps

Infrastructure as code is what makes DevOps work past the app boundary: CI/CD, shift-left testing, policy as code, and AI agents for the platform itself.

Cam Soper Cam Soper 14 min read

Kubernetes Infrastructure as Code: Tools and Best Practices

Kubernetes infrastructure as code defines the cluster, its workloads, and the cloud resources around them in version-controlled code. Tools and best practices.

Cam Soper Cam Soper 15 min read

JavaScript and TypeScript Infrastructure as Code

Define cloud infrastructure as code in TypeScript or JavaScript: real types, npm packages, IDE tooling, and Jest tests for VPCs and clusters.

Pablo Seibelt Pablo Seibelt 12 min read

Python for DevOps

Python is the lingua franca of DevOps and MLOps automation. Learn where Python fits in IaC, CI/CD, observability, and machine-learning operations.

Pablo Seibelt Pablo Seibelt 11 min read

Secrets management

What is Secrets Management?

Understand secrets management, the importance of secrets management, and how secrets management relates to infrastructure as code and configuration management

Scott Lowe Scott Lowe 44 min read

What is HashiCorp Vault? Features, Use Cases & Setup

HashiCorp Vault securely stores and controls access to secrets like tokens, passwords, and encryption keys. Learn its features and Pulumi ESC integration.

James Denyer James Denyer 5 min read

What is AWS Secrets Manager? Setup & Best Practices

AWS Secrets Manager stores, rotates, and retrieves credentials without hard-coding them. Learn to create secrets via the CLI and use Pulumi ESC.

Torian Crane Torian Crane 5 min read

What is Azure Key Vault? Setup & Best Practices

Azure Key Vault securely stores secrets, keys, and certificates and controls access to them. Learn to create Key Vault secrets and centralize with Pulumi ESC.

Torian Crane Torian Crane 5 min read

What is Google Cloud Secret Manager? Setup Guide

Google Cloud Secret Manager stores API keys and passwords as encrypted, versioned secrets. Learn to create secrets via the CLI and apply best practices.

Torian Crane Torian Crane 4 min read

What are Kubernetes Secrets? Guide & Best Practices

Kubernetes Secrets store sensitive data apart from pod specs so it isn't hard-coded into manifests. Learn to create, read, update, and delete Secrets safely.

Diana Esteves Diana Esteves 7 min read

What are Docker Secrets? Setup & Best Practices

Docker Secrets pass sensitive data, like passwords and keys, to Swarm containers without hard-coding it. Learn to create secrets via the CLI or Compose.

Torian Crane Torian Crane 5 min read

What are Docker Configs? Setup & Best Practices

Docker Configs store non-sensitive data, like config files, and mount it into Swarm containers at runtime. Learn to create and mount Configs via the CLI.

Torian Crane Torian Crane 5 min read

What is a GitHub Actions Secret? How It Works

A GitHub Actions secret is an encrypted variable at the repo, environment, or org level so workflows use credentials safely. Learn to create one.

Diana Esteves Diana Esteves 4 min read

What is a CircleCI Secret? Setup & Best Practices

A CircleCI secret is an encrypted variable that keeps credentials out of config files. Learn to define, reference, and rotate secrets, and use OIDC with ESC.

Diana Esteves Diana Esteves 7 min read

What is a Cloudflare Secret? Setup & Best Practices

A Cloudflare secret is an encrypted variable Workers read at runtime, never exposed in code. Learn to create secrets with Wrangler and access them.

Diana Esteves Diana Esteves 6 min read

Compliance & frameworks

What is SOC 2?

SOC 2 is an AICPA attestation that proves a service provider's controls meet the Trust Services Criteria. Learn Type I vs Type II, scope, and the audit process.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA is the US law that sets national standards for protecting health information. Learn its rules, who it covers, penalties, and how to comply.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

What is HITRUST?

HITRUST CSF is a certifiable security framework that harmonizes HIPAA, NIST, ISO 27001, and more into one assessment. Learn the levels, scope, and process.

Asaf Ashirov Asaf Ashirov 11 min read

Comparisons

Database Comparison: Cosmos DB vs DynamoDB

Compare NoSQL databases Cosmos DB vs DynamoDB. See the similarities and differences between these databases to determine which is best for you.

Kat Cosgrove Kat Cosgrove 3 min read

Cosmos DB vs MongoDB, Know The Differences?

Compare Cosmos DB and MongoDB strengths and limitations to determine the best database option.

Kat Cosgrove Kat Cosgrove 2 min read

Amazon DynamoDB vs Google Cloud Bigtable

Compare Amazon DynamoDB vs Google Cloud Bigtable, plus other DynamoDB alternatives like Cassandra, MongoDB, and Cosmos DB, to pick the right NoSQL database.

Kat Cosgrove Kat Cosgrove 4 min read

Guides

Automating AWS S3 File Expiration with Pulumi

A comprehensive guide to automate file expiration in AWS S3 using Pulumi.

James Denyer James Denyer 4 min read

MCP for Infrastructure as Code: What It Means for Pulumi Users

MCP connects AI agents to your cloud infrastructure. Learn what MCP for IaC means, how vendors are building it, and how Pulumi's MCP server works.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

Other concepts

Is Kubernetes Infrastructure as Code?

Partly. Kubernetes reconciles YAML like IaC, but the loop stops at the cluster boundary. Pulumi extends that model to the infrastructure underneath.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 10 min read

What Is a Terraform Module?

A Terraform module is a reusable container for a group of related resources, defined once and called with different inputs. Learn how modules work.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 13 min read

What Is Cloud Misconfiguration?

A cloud misconfiguration is an insecure setting on a cloud resource that exposes data or systems. Learn the common types and how to prevent them.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 14 min read

What Is GitOps?

GitOps manages infrastructure and apps with Git as the single source of truth and agents that reconcile live state to match. Learn how it works.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 12 min read

What Is Terraform State?

Terraform state maps your configuration to real cloud resources so Terraform knows what it manages. Learn how the state file, backends, and locking work.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 13 min read

What Is Terragrunt?

Terragrunt wraps Terraform and OpenTofu to add DRY configuration, remote state management, and multi-module orchestration. Learn how it works.

Alex Leventer Alex Leventer 13 min read

Why is Python So Popular?

Why is Python so popular? Take a brief look at nine factors that have helped make Python one of the world’s leading programming languages.

Zack Chase Zack Chase 6 min read

Troubleshooting & CLI recipes

Quick fixes and command references for running the AWS CLI with Pulumi ESC-issued dynamic credentials.

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