AWS CDK - Simplified Management

Having used AWS CDK on personal and professional projects for 3 years now, I thought I would put together some of my thoughts on the current landscape of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tooling, comparing it to others that I have used throughout my career. I’ve previously managed infrastructure using different technologies over the years - from Ansible to Terraform, all of which are great tools and perfect for certain scenarios depending on use cases, but the experience that CDK provides me is far superior than anything else which is why I always reach for it no matter the project.

🎮 Infrastructure as (programming language) Code: A Game Changer

A massive contributing shift to the rise in IaC is the fact that cloud solutions have became a lot more accessible - with advances in services themselves, but also security enhancements.

Gone are the days of clicking through console interfaces or writing lengthy CloudFormation templates. AWS CDK brings IaC to life by allowing developers to define cloud resources using familiar programming languages like TypeScript and Python. Previously, I felt like there were two barriers to entry in terms of infrastructure: infrastructure concepts themselves, and secondly the language that the configuration itself is written in.

With the likes of CDK, the engineer can write the infrastructure in their native programming language - meaning there is one less barrier to entry. Which I feel like in itself is a massive win.

const api = new apigateway.RestApi(this, 'Api', {
  deployOptions: {
    stageName: 'production',
  },
});

On top of writing constructs in the engineer’s native language, it also enables easier common best practices such as code reviews, and automated tests - the same as application-level code.

⚡️ The Power of Constructs

One of AWS CDK’s most compelling features is its construct-based architecture. Constructs are reusable components that encapsulate cloud resources and their configurations. Whilst this sort of concept exists in the likes of Terraform modules, it simply comes back to being in a standard programming language and non-specific DSL that makes the constructs super powerful within CDK.

An example of one can be seen below:

export class SecureApi extends Construct {
  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props: SecureApiProps) {
    super(scope, id);
    
    // Create API Gateway with security configurations
    const api = new apigateway.RestApi(this, 'Api', {
      defaultMethodOptions: {
        authorizationType: apigateway.AuthorizationType.IAM,
      },
    });
    
    // Add WAF protection
    const waf = new wafv2.CfnWebACL(this, 'WebACL', {
      // WAF configuration
    });
    
    // Associate WAF with API Gateway
    new wafv2.CfnWebACLAssociation(this, 'WebACLAssociation', {
      resourceArn: api.deploymentStage.stageArn,
      webAclArn: waf.attrArn,
    });
  }
}

Using constructs not only reduces code duplication, but also enforces best practices across your organisation. It also means that if a new feature comes out (e.g. security principal) for a certain resource that your org needs to support in order to achieve accreditation, it means that it could be as simple as a few lines of code changed in a single file to propagate this throughout your org.

✍️ Seamless Integration with Development Tools

AWS CDK integrates effortlessly with popular development tools and IDEs. When working in Visual Studio Code with the AWS Toolkit extension, developers benefit from auto-completion, syntax highlighting, and real-time validation of CDK code.

This integration eliminates the context-switching that traditionally occurred between application development and infrastructure management, resulting in a more efficient development process.

On top of this, with the rise in AI and code generation tooling (the likes of CodeWhisperer, Q, Copilot), infrastructure is less business logic heavy than applications and means that AI tooling is usually pretty good at generating blocks with accurate parameters and best practices - speeding up development time and allowing you to create those custom constructs much easier.

⚠️ Reducing Complexity, Minimising Errors

By abstracting away the low-level details of cloud resources, AWS CDK significantly reduces the complexity of infrastructure management. Developers can focus on high-level architecture decisions rather than getting bogged down in configuration details.

If your architecture lends itself to provisioning similar resources time and time again (thinking of cloud-native serverless applications), having separate definitions for each Lambda function for example, can become unwieldy to manage - increasing the risk for errors to slip into the configuration.

Using CDK to create reusable constructs means that the resources are easily maintained and updated in a single place.

Conclusion

AWS CDK represents a significant evolution in cloud infrastructure management, offering a more developer-friendly, efficient, and collaborative approach. By treating infrastructure as code, leveraging reusable constructs, and integrating with existing development tools, AWS CDK simplifies complex cloud deployments while improving consistency and reducing errors.

As cloud architectures continue to grow in complexity, tools like AWS CDK will become increasingly essential for organizations looking to maintain agility and efficiency in their cloud operations. Whether you’re managing a small application or a large-scale enterprise system, AWS CDK provides the tools needed to simplify infrastructure management and focus on delivering value to your users.