Still manually managing servers? Here’s why South Africa’s smartest IT teams are using Infrastructure as Code to stop the firefighting, fix legacy chaos and keep costs under control.

Sick of hearing that “Only John knows how that server’s set up”?

You’re not alone. Most SA systems are legacy: 80% of government, 40% of healthcare, most banking systems, and more – in fact, 60-80% of IT budgets still go to maintaining legacy software systems. 

Which generally means they are pre-2000s, and most likely all servers, networks, firewalls and environments were set up manually by someone. And a gross amount of every IT system owner’s time and budget goes to sourcing and managing that expertise.

But it doesn’t need to be that way. For many IT Systems Owners and Infrastructure Managers, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is quietly becoming a game-changer by removing that manual aspect.

“It’s not about chasing hype,” says Richard Bailey, Competency Lead: Software Engineering at Kohde.io.

“Infrastructure as Code brings discipline to infrastructure, just like version control brought discipline to application code. And for teams under pressure to scale safely, that changes everything.”

Here’s what you need to know:

What Is Infrastructure as Code, Really?

At its core, Infrastructure as Code means defining your infrastructure (servers, networks, firewalls, environments) as configuration files rather than setting them up manually. These files are stored in source control systems like Git, giving your infrastructure the same auditability, repeatability, and automation benefits as software development.

Joe Van der Walt, Founding Director at Kohde, explains it simply:

“Instead of manually configuring servers, you define everything in a text file. That file goes into version control. Now, your infrastructure has history, visibility, and a controlled path to production.”

This approach eliminates human error and enables instant rollback, peer reviews, and automated deployments. You can spin up, duplicate or decommission entire environments with confidence that they’ll behave the same way every time.

What Infrastructure as Code Fixes — Especially in SA Enterprise Contexts

South African enterprises often deal with fragmented legacy systems, pressure to support transformation agendas, and under-resourced IT teams. For this context, the benefits of Infrastructure as Code are more than just technical:

• Consistency across dev, test and prod environments.
• Auditability for compliance-heavy sectors like health, finance and government.
• Faster environment setup, especially across hybrid or multi-subscription Azure environments.
• Reduced reliance on tribal knowledge or key-person dependencies.
• Security through access control (engineers no longer need to log into servers).
  
  

Richard points to a recent Kohde engagement with CMI, where adopting Infrastructure as Code allowed the team to eliminate all direct access to production servers:

“All logs and diagnostics were routed through Exceptionless and Kubernetes. The ops team could monitor, debug, and deploy — without ever touching a server manually.”

Real-World Use Cases: Where Infrastructure as Code Shines

Infrastructure as Code isn’t about replacing everything overnight. It’s most powerful when introduced incrementally in high-impact areas. According to Kohde’s team, here’s where it’s delivering results:

1. Duplicate and migrate environments on demand

 “We’ve moved web apps between Azure subscriptions with near-zero friction,” says Divan Oosthuizen, Competency Lead: Software Engineering. “We just point the deployment pipeline to a new environment.”

2. Automate secure, auditable changes

In regulated industries, provisioning a server may require approval from security, architecture, legal, and support teams. IaC allows this to happen via workflow — no meetings required. 

“Once it’s approved, the system just makes it so,” says Joe.

3. Eliminate manual drift

Every deployment enforces the intended state. Manual tweaks are overwritten, ensuring config integrity across environments.

From Firefighting to Future-Proofing: Operational Wins from IaC

Ask any IT Systems Owner — stability is gold. Infrastructure as Code supports that goal by reducing time-to-environment from days to minutes, allowing full rollback when things break, decoupling developers from infra teams (reducing bottlenecks) and enabling reliable DR setups that can be rebuilt instantly from code.

Divan notes that this shift empowers devs too:

“In the past, provisioning meant waiting on the infra team. Now, developers can deploy using tools they already know — and production environments are consistent by design.”

The Risk and Audit Advantage: Why Auditors Love Infrastructure as Code

In the old world, undocumented tweaks to production environments were common and dangerous. With IaC, every infrastructure change is logged, reviewed, versioned and reproducible.

“It’s music to an auditor’s ears,” says Divan. “You get historical records, version control, and traceability — by default.”

Richard puts it bluntly:

“You go from relying on memory and sticky notes to having a clear trail of what changed, when, and why.”

Misconceptions and Hard Truths: What Teams Often Miss

1. It’s not “just scripting”

System engineers may underestimate the learning curve — it involves new tools, workflows, and concepts like declarative state and pipelines.

2. It’s not cloud-only

Many assume Infrastructure as Code is only for startups or Kubernetes-heavy teams. But the benefits apply just as well to hybrid Azure setups and long-lived VMs.

3. The hardest part? Starting

“The only way to adopt IaC is to decide: all new projects will use it,” says Divan. “Otherwise, it’s always easier to avoid the change.”

How to Start With Infrastructure as Code — Without Breaking What Works

Kohde recommends a phased, low-risk approach:

1. Start with non-prod environments
   
2. Use Azure-native tooling (e.g., Bicep, Azure CLI) or cloud-agnostic tools like Terraform
   
3. Add version control and approval workflows
   
4. Gradually expand coverage: add networking, identity, monitoring, and DR

Joe’s advice to IT Systems Owners:

“Pick one environment. Put it in code. Get it into source control. From there, your team will never want to go back.”

The Bottom Line: Infrastructure as Code Is Quietly Transformative

For South African IT leaders navigating tight budgets, complex integrations, and rising compliance demands, Infrastructure as Code isn’t a DevOps luxury — it’s a pragmatic path to more reliable systems.

“It’s not just a technical upgrade,” says Richard.

“It’s a strategic move. You get speed, visibility, stability — and a platform you can actually build on.”

Want Help Getting Started?

At Kohde, we help South African enterprises implement Infrastructure as Code in a way that respects uptime, works with legacy systems and delivers measurable operational wins..

If you’re ready to explore a small-scale pilot or want to see how IaC could reduce your team’s workload, chat with Divan, Richard, Joe and the team.