What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure refers to the practice of managing and provisioning cloud resources using code. It allows organizations to define and deploy their infrastructure as configuration files, written in a high-level programming language. By treating infrastructure as code, Azure users can automate the provisioning and management of their resources, resulting in increased efficiency, scalability, and reliability.
With IaC in Azure, users can define their desired infrastructure state using tools like Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Azure Bicep, or Terraform. These templates describe the desired configuration of resources such as virtual machines, storage accounts, networking, and more. By defining the infrastructure as code, users can apply the same configuration repeatedly, making it easier to manage and maintain infrastructure over time.
The benefits of using IaC in Azure are numerous. Firstly, it allows for version control and collaboration, enabling teams to track and manage changes to the infrastructure codebase. This improves visibility, auditability, and accountability, making it easier to troubleshoot and resolve issues.
Secondly, IaC enables infrastructure to be treated as a software artifact, promoting agile development practices. Infrastructure changes can be tested, reviewed, and deployed in a controlled manner, reducing the risk of errors and downtime.
Additionally, IaC allows for easy scalability and reproducibility. By abstracting infrastructure details into code, it becomes simpler to replicate and scale environments, whether for development, testing, or production purposes. This enables faster time-to-market andreduces the time and effort required to provision new resources.
Furthermore, IaC in Azure helps to enforce consistency and compliance across environments. By defining infrastructure as code, organizations can ensure that all resources are provisioned and configured according to a set of predefined standards. This not only improves the security and reliability of the infrastructure but also facilitates regulatory compliance.
Implementing IaC in Azure requires a few key steps. First, organizations must choose a tool or framework for defining and managing their infrastructure code. As mentioned earlier, popular options include Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Azure Bicep, and Terraform. These tools provide a declarative syntax for expressing the desired infrastructure state.
Once a tool is selected, organizations can start writing their infrastructure code. This involves defining the resources, their configurations, and any dependencies. The code can be stored in a version control system, such as Git, to facilitate collaboration and track changes over time.
Next, organizations can use the chosen tool to deploy the infrastructure code to Azure. This can be done through the Azure portal, command-line interface (CLI), or using automation tools like Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions. The deployment process will create or update the specified resources in the Azure environment, based on the code definitions.
Throughout the deployment process, organizations can leverage the capabilities of IaC to validate and test their infrastructure code. Tools like ARM templates or Terraform provide validation checks, allowing users to catch errors or misconfigurations before deploying the codeto production. This helps to reduce the risk of issues and ensures that the infrastructure is set up correctly. After the infrastructure code is deployed, organizations can easily manage and maintain their resources using IaC. Any changes or updates to the infrastructure can be made by modifying the code and redeploying it. This makes it easier to version control the infrastructure and track changes over time.
IaC also enables organizations to automate their infrastructure management processes. With tools like Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, organizations can set up continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for their infrastructure code. This allows for faster and more efficient deployments, as well as the ability to roll back changes if necessary.
In conclusion, implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure offers numerous benefits for companies looking to modernize their IT infrastructure. It provides a more efficient and reliable way to provision and manage resources, while also ensuring consistency and compliance across environments. By choosing the right tools and following best practices, organizations can leverage the power of IaC to streamline their operations and accelerate their digital transformation journey.
How does Infrastructure as Code (IaC) help me to manage Azure resources?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a powerful approach that enables you to manage Azure resources in a more efficient and scalable manner. By leveraging IaC, you can automate the provisioning, deployment, and management of your Azure infrastructure using code.
Here are some ways IaC helps you to manage Azure resources effectively:
- Provisioning: With IaC, you can define your entire Azure infrastructure as code using templates such as Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates or Terraform. This allows you to automate the provisioning of resources, eliminating manual and error-prone deployment processes. You can easily define and manage Azure resources like virtual machines, storage accounts, networks, and more, as well as their configurations and dependencies.
- Repeatability and Consistency: IaC ensures that your infrastructure deployments are consistent and reproducible. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can easily reproduce the exact same environment across different Azure subscriptions or regions. This provides consistency and reduces the risk of configuration drift, making it easier to manage and troubleshoot your resources.
- Scalability and Agility: As your business grows, you need to scale your infrastructure accordingly. IaC allows you to easily scale your Azure resources by modifying the code. You can increase the number of instances, change resource sizes, or even add entirely new resources with just a few modifications to the code. This helps you respond quickly to changing business needs and ensures that your infrastructure scales seamlessly.
- Version Control and Collaboration: IaC enables version control and collaboration for managing Azure resources. By storing your infrastructure code in a version control system like Git, you can track changes, roll back to previous versions, and collaborate with others more effectively. This ensures that everyone is working with the latest version of the code and allows for better collaboration and code reviews.
- Automation: IaC enables automation of resource deployment and management tasks. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can use tools like Azure DevOps or Jenkins to automate the deployment and configuration of your Azure resources. This saves time and reduces the risk of human error associated with manual deployments.
- Testing and Validation: IaC allows you to test and validate your infrastructure code before deploying it to production. By using tools like Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, you can set up automated tests to validate the correctness of your infrastructure code. This helps catch any issues or misconfigurations early in the development process, reducing the risk of failures in production.
- Auditing and Compliance: IaC provides better visibility and control over your Azure resources, making it easier to audit and ensure compliance with security and regulatory requirements. By having your infrastructure defined as code, you can easily track and monitor changes to your resources, ensuring that they comply with company policies and industry standards.
In conclusion, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) offers numerous benefits for managing Azure resources effectively. By automating the provisioning, deployment, and management of your Azure infrastructure using code,companies can achieve scalability, version control, automation, testing and validation, and auditing and compliance. This not only improves efficiency and reduces human error, but also allows for better collaboration and ensures that resources are in line with business needs and industry standards.
By scaling Azure resources through code modifications, companies can quickly respond to changing business needs and ensure seamless infrastructure scalability. This flexibility allows for efficient resource allocation and utilization, reducing costs and improving overall performance.
Version control and collaboration are enhanced through IaC, as infrastructure code can be stored in version control systems like Git. This enables tracking of changes, rollback to previous versions, and effective collaboration with team members. By working with the latest code version, companies can ensure that everyone is aligned and reduce the risk of errors caused by working with outdated code.
Automation is a key aspect of IaC, enabling the automation of resource deployment and management tasks. By defining infrastructure as code, companies can leverage tools like Azure DevOps or Jenkins to automate the deployment and configuration of Azure resources. This saves time and reduces the risk of human error associated with manual deployments, improving efficiency and reliability.
Testing and validation are crucial steps in the development process, and IaC allows for the testing and validation of infrastructure code before deploying it to production. Through tools like Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, companies can set up automated tests to validate the correctness of infrastructure code. This helps catch any issues or misconfigurations early on, reducing the risk of failures in production and ensuring asmooth deployment process.
Auditing and compliance are also important aspects of managing Azure resources, and IaC makes it easier to track and monitor changes. By leveraging tools like Azure Policy or Azure Security Center, companies can ensure that their infrastructure is compliant with industry standards and regulations. Additionally, the use of code-based infrastructure allows for easier tracking of changes, making it simpler to perform audits and ensure accountability.
In summary, Infrastructure as Code is a powerful approach for managing Azure resources effectively. By automating the provisioning, deployment, and management of infrastructure using code, companies can achieve scalability, version control, automation, testing and validation, and auditing and compliance. This leads to improved efficiency, reduced costs, better collaboration, and alignment with business needs and industry standards. If you're looking to modernize your IT infrastructure and applications with Azure, adopting Infrastructure as Code is a smart choice.
How does Infrastructure as Code (IaC) help me to manage Azure resources?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a powerful approach that allows you to manage your Azure resources in a more efficient and automated manner. By defining your infrastructure using code instead of manual processes, IaC helps you achieve consistency, scalability, and reliability in your Azure environment.
Here are some key ways in which IaC can help you manage your Azure resources effectively:
- Automation: With IaC, you can automate the provisioning and configuration of your Azure resources. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can use tools like Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Azure CLI, or Terraform to automate the deployment and management of your resources. This eliminates the need for manual intervention, reduces human errors, and ensures that your infrastructure is always in the desired state.
- Version Control: Infrastructure code can be version controlled using tools like Git, allowing you to track changes, collaborate with teammates, and roll back to previous versions if needed. This provides a reliable and auditable history of your infrastructure changes and enables better collaboration among team members.
- Scalability: With IaC, you can easily scale up or down your Azure resources based on your requirements. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can easily modify the code to increase or decrease the number of resources, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, or databases. This flexibility allows you to respond quickly to changes in demand and optimize resource utilization.
- Consistency: IaC ensures consistency in your Azure environment byenforcing a standardized and repeatable process for deploying and managing resources. With IaC, you can define your infrastructure as code, which can be easily shared and reused across different environments or projects. This eliminates the risk of configuration drift and ensures that your resources are deployed consistently, regardless of the person or team responsible for the deployment.
- Reliability: By using IaC, you can achieve a higher level of reliability in your Azure environment. Infrastructure code allows you to define and enforce best practices, security policies, and compliance requirements throughout the entire lifecycle of your resources. This helps you ensure that your infrastructure is secure, compliant, and resilient, reducing the risk of downtime or security breaches.
- Cost Optimization: IaC can help you optimize costs in your Azure environment by allowing you to easily identify and eliminate any unnecessary resources or configurations. With infrastructure code, you can track and manage your resources more effectively, ensuring that you only provision and pay for the resources you actually need. This can result in significant cost savings and improved resource utilization.
In conclusion, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a valuable approach for managing your Azure resources. It provides automation, version control, scalability, consistency, reliability, and cost optimization, enabling you to modernize your IT infrastructure and applications with confidence. By adopting IaC, you can streamline your operations, improve efficiency, and align with industry best practices. So, if you're looking to modernize your IT infrastructure and applications with Azure, implementing Infrastructure as Code is a crucial step. It empowers you to automate your infrastructure deployment, manage your resources efficiently, and ensure consistency and reliability throughout your Azure environment.
One of the key advantages of IaC is automation. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can easily automate the deployment and management of your resources. This eliminates the need for manual intervention, reduces human errors, and saves time and effort. With automation, you can rapidly provision and configure your infrastructure, enabling faster time to market for your applications and services.
Version control is another significant benefit of IaC. By treating your infrastructure code as any other software code, you can track changes, collaborate with your team, and maintain a history of your infrastructure configurations. This enables you to roll back to previous versions if needed and ensures that your Azure environment is always in a known and controlled state.
Scalability is a critical requirement for modern IT infrastructure. With IaC, you can easily modify the code to increase or decrease the number of resources, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, or databases. This flexibility allows you to respond quickly to changes in demand and optimize resource utilization. Whether you need to scale up during peak periods or scale down during low-traffic periods, IaC enables you to adapt your infrastructure effortlessly.
Consistency is another key advantage of IaC. It enforces a standardized and repeatable process for deploying and managing resources in your Azure environment. By defining your infrastructure as code, youeliminate the risk of human error and ensure that all deployments are consistent and reliable. This consistency enhances the stability and performance of your applications and reduces troubleshooting time and effort.
Furthermore, IaC enables cost optimization in your Azure environment. With the ability to provision and deprovision resources on-demand, you can optimize resource utilization and avoid unnecessary costs. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can also enforce best practices for cost control, such as tagging resources and setting up cost alerts. This visibility and control over your infrastructure spending can result in significant cost savings for your organization.
Implementing IaC in Azure can be done using various tools and frameworks such as Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, HashiCorp Terraform, or AWS CloudFormation. These tools provide a declarative syntax for defining your infrastructure as code and offer a wide range of features and capabilities for managing your resources.
In conclusion, Infrastructure as Code is a crucial step in modernizing your IT infrastructure and applications with Azure. It brings automation, version control, scalability, consistency, and cost optimization to your Azure environment, enabling you to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and align with industry best practices. By adopting IaC, you can confidently manage and scale your infrastructure, reduce human errors, and achieve faster time to market for your applications and services. So, if you're looking to leverage the power of Azure and modernize your IT infrastructure, consider implementing Infrastructure as Code.
What are the benefits of using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a powerful approach to managing cloud infrastructure, and its benefits are especially significant when using Microsoft Azure. Here are some of the key advantages of using IaC in Azure:
- Automation and repeatability: With IaC, you can define your Azure infrastructure using code, which allows you to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of resources. This automation ensures consistency and repeatability in your infrastructure deployments, reducing the risk of human error and enabling faster and more reliable deployments.
- Scalability and flexibility: IaC enables you to easily scale your Azure infrastructure up or down as needed. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can easily adjust the number of resources or change their configurations, making it simpler to meet changing business requirements and efficiently manage resource usage.
- Version control and collaboration: By treating your infrastructure as code, you can take advantage of version control systems like Git to track changes, compare versions, and collaborate with your team. This facilitates collaboration, improves transparency, and reduces the risk of configuration drift or undocumented changes in your infrastructure.
- Disaster recovery and compliance: IaC helps you ensure consistent disaster recovery and compliance practices in Azure. By defining your infrastructure as code, you can document and automate the necessary configurations and policies, making it easier to recover from failures, ensure compliance with industry regulations, and implement security best practices.
- Cost optimization: With IaC, you can optimize your Azure infrastructure costsby easily managing and controlling resource usage.
By defining your infrastructure as code, you can identify and remove unnecessary resources, right-size your infrastructure, and implement cost-saving measures. This enables you to maximize the value of your Azure investment and optimize your overall IT budget.
How to implement Infrastructure as Code in Azure?
To implement Infrastructure as Code in Azure, you can follow these steps:
- Choose an IaC tool: There are several popular IaC tools available for Azure, such as Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Terraform, and Ansible. Research these tools and choose the one that best fits your requirements and preferences.
- Define your infrastructure: Using the chosen IaC tool, define your Azure infrastructure as code. This involves writing code that describes the desired state of your infrastructure, including resources, configurations, and dependencies.
- Provision and deploy: Use the IaC tool to provision and deploy your Azure infrastructure. The tool will automatically create and configure the resources defined in your code, ensuring consistency and repeatability.
- Test and validate: After deploying your infrastructure, thoroughly test and validate it to ensure everything is functioning as expected. This includes testing for any potential issues or errors and validating that your infrastructure meets the required specifications.
- Maintain and update: As your infrastructure and business requirements evolve, continue to maintain and update your infrastructure code. Version control your code and use CI/CD pipelines to automate the deployment and testing process.
- Monitor and optimize: Regularly monitor and optimize your Azure infrastructure to ensure it is performing efficiently and cost-effectively. Use monitoring tools and analytics to identify any performance bottlenecks or resource usage issues. Implement optimizations such as scaling resources up or down based on demand, implementing caching mechanisms, and optimizing network configurations.
By following these steps, you can successfully implement Infrastructure as Code in Azure and reap the benefits of improved efficiency, scalability, security, and cost optimization.
Conclusion:
Implementing Infrastructure as Code in Azure offers numerous advantages for companies looking to modernize their IT infrastructure and applications. It enables you to automate and document your infrastructure configurations, ensure compliance, and implement security best practices. Additionally, Infrastructure as Code allows you to optimize your Azure infrastructure costs and maximize the value of your investment.
By choosing the right IaC tool, defining your infrastructure as code, provisioning and deploying, testing and validating, maintaining and updating, and monitoring and optimizing, you can successfully leverage Infrastructure as Code in Azure and accelerate your digital transformation journey.
What are the different types of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools available for Azure?
When it comes to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools for Microsoft Azure, there are several options available to help companies streamline their IT infrastructure and application modernization processes. These tools assist in automating the provisioning, configuration, and management of resources within Azure, enabling organizations to achieve greater efficiency, scalability, and consistency. Here are some popular IaC tools specifically designed for Azure:
- Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates: This native tool from Microsoft allows you to define and deploy Azure resources using declarative JSON templates. ARM templates provide a comprehensive way to define the infrastructure and dependencies, making it easy to deploy, manage, and update resources as a single unit.
- Terraform: Although it is not exclusive to Azure, Terraform is widely used as an IaC solution across multi-cloud environments, including Azure. Terraform uses a declarative language to define infrastructure as code and supports Azure resource provisioning and configuration. It provides a consistent way to manage Azure resources alongside other cloud providers.
- Azure CLI: Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) is a powerful cross-platform tool that enables automation and scripting of Azure resources. It allows you to manage Azure infrastructure and services using command-line commands in a variety of scripting languages. Azure CLI provides a flexible and efficient way to automate Azure resource deployments and configurations.
- Azure Bicep: Recently introduced by Microsoft, Azure Bicep is a domain-specific language (DSL) that simplifies Azure resource provisioning and deployment. Bicep allows you to define your infrastructure as code using a more expressive and concise syntax compared to JSON. It is designed to improve readability and maintainability of Azure deployments.
These are just a few examples of the Infrastructure as Code tools available for Azure. Each tool has its own features, advantages, and learning curves, so it's important to choose the one that best fits your organization's needs and preferences.
Why should companies consider using Infrastructure as Code tools for Azure?
There are several benefits to using Infrastructure as Code tools for Azure:
- Automation and Efficiency: Infrastructure as Code tools enable companies to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of Azure resources. This reduces the need for manual and repetitive tasks, saving time and effort. It also ensures consistency and reduces the risk of errors.
- Scalability and Flexibility: With Infrastructure as Code, companies can easily scale their Azure resources up or down as needed, without manual intervention. This allows for greater flexibility and agility in responding to changing business needs.
- Version Control and Collaboration: Infrastructure as Code tools allow companies to treat their infrastructure configurations as code, enabling version control and collaboration. This means that changes and updates to the infrastructure can be tracked, reviewed, and rolled back if necessary. It also promotes collaboration between teams, as the infrastructure code can be shared and reviewed by multiple stakeholders.
- Reproducibility and Standardization: Infrastructure as Code tools enable companies to define their infrastructure configurations in a standardized and reproducible manner. This ensures thatthe infrastructure can be easily recreated in different environments, such as development, staging, and production. It also reduces the risk of configuration drift, where manual changes made to the infrastructure can result in inconsistencies and errors.
- Cost Optimization: Infrastructure as Code tools provide companies with the ability to manage and optimize their Azure resources more efficiently. By defining the infrastructure configurations as code, companies can easily identify and remove any unnecessary or underutilized resources, resulting in cost savings.
- Faster Time to Market: With Infrastructure as Code, companies can provision and deploy their Azure resources much faster compared to manual processes. This enables faster development and deployment cycles, reducing time to market for new applications and features.
- Compliance and Security: Infrastructure as Code tools allow companies to define and enforce security and compliance policies as part of their infrastructure configurations. This ensures that Azure resources are provisioned and managed in a secure and compliant manner, reducing the risk of security breaches and data breaches.
In conclusion, Infrastructure as Code tools provide companies with numerous benefits when it comes to modernizing their IT infrastructure and applications with Azure. From automation and efficiency to scalability and flexibility, these tools enable companies to streamline their Azure resource provisioning and management processes. They also promote collaboration, reproducibility, and standardization, while optimizing costs and improving security and compliance. By leveraging Infrastructure as Code tools, companies can accelerate their digital transformation journey and stay competitive in today's fast-paced business landscape.When it comes to modernizing IT infrastructure and applications, companies have several options to choose from, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. These cloud platforms offer a wide range of services and features that can help companies scale and optimize their operations. However, one key aspect of modernization that often gets overlooked is the management and provisioning of resources within these cloud platforms.
This is where Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools come into play. IaC is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure resources using code, rather than manual processes. With IaC tools, companies can define their infrastructure configurations as code, allowing for greater automation, efficiency, and scalability. In the context of Azure, there are several benefits that IaC tools can provide:
- Automation and Efficiency: IaC tools automate the provisioning and management of Azure resources, reducing the need for manual intervention. This not only saves time and effort but also reduces the risk of human error. By defining infrastructure configurations as code, companies can easily and consistently provision and manage their Azure resources, resulting in greater efficiency and productivity.
- Scalability and Flexibility: IaC tools enable companies to easily scale their Azure resources up or down, depending on their needs. With just a few lines of code, companies can provision additional resources or remove unnecessary ones, without the need for manual intervention. This allows for greater flexibility and agility, as companies can quickly respond to changes in demand or business requirements.
- Collaboration andReproducibility: IaC tools promote collaboration among team members by providing a standardized and version-controlled approach to infrastructure provisioning and management. With code-based configurations, multiple team members can work on the same infrastructure project simultaneously, making it easier to collaborate and share knowledge. Additionally, IaC tools enable reproducibility, as infrastructure configurations can be easily shared, reviewed, and deployed across different environments, ensuring consistent results.
- Cost Optimization: IaC tools help companies optimize costs by providing granular control over Azure resources. With code-based configurations, companies can easily track and monitor their resource usage, identify any unused or underutilized resources, and make necessary adjustments to optimize costs. Additionally, IaC tools allow for the automation of cost-saving measures, such as shutting down resources during non-business hours or leveraging reserved instances.
- Security and Compliance: IaC tools enhance security and compliance by enabling companies to define security best practices and compliance requirements as code. This ensures that security measures and compliance policies are consistently applied across all Azure resources. Additionally, IaC tools provide a centralized and auditable view of infrastructure changes, making it easier to track and monitor any security or compliance issues.
Overall, Infrastructure as Code tools play a crucial role in modernizing IT infrastructure and applications on Azure. They provide automation, scalability, collaboration, cost optimization, and security benefits that can help companies stay competitive in today's digital landscape. By leveraging IaC tools, companies can accelerate their digital
How do I implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure?
Implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure is a crucial step towards modernizing your IT infrastructure and applications. With IaC, you can automate the provisioning and management of your resources in Azure, enabling efficient deployments, improved scalability, and enhanced collaboration among team members. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to implement IaC in Azure:
- Choose an IaC tool: Azure provides two primary options for implementing IaC: Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and Terraform. ARM templates are specific to Azure, while Terraform is a cross-platform tool that supports multiple cloud providers, including Azure. Evaluate the pros and cons of each tool to determine which one aligns better with your requirements.
- Define your infrastructure: Start by defining your infrastructure requirements in code. This involves creating declarative templates that specify the desired state of your Azure resources. These templates should include details such as virtual machines, networking resources, storage accounts, and any other components your infrastructure requires.
- Version control your code: Use a version control system, such as Git, to manage your IaC code and track changes over time. This ensures that you have a history of the infrastructure configurations and makes it easier to collaborate with other team members.
- Test and validate: Before deploying your infrastructure, thoroughly test and validate your IaC code. This ensures that your templates are error-free and consistent with your requirements. Make use of Azure's validation tools and lintingtools to identify any potential issues or best practices that you may have missed.
- Deploy your infrastructure: Once you are confident in the quality of your IaC code, it's time to deploy your infrastructure. Use Azure DevOps or other CI/CD pipelines to automate the deployment process and ensure consistency across environments. Monitor the deployment progress and address any issues that may arise.
- Monitor and manage: After deploying your infrastructure, regularly monitor and manage it to ensure optimal performance and security. Azure provides various monitoring and management tools, such as Azure Monitor and Azure Security Center, that can help you keep track of your resources and detect any potential issues.
- Update and iterate: As your business requirements evolve, you may need to update your infrastructure configurations. With IaC, making changes is as simple as modifying your code and re-deploying. Continuously iterate and improve your infrastructure to adapt to changing needs and take advantage of new Azure features and capabilities.
By following these steps, you can successfully implement Infrastructure as Code in Azure and unlock the benefits of automation, scalability, collaboration, cost optimization, and security. Modernizing your IT infrastructure and applications with IaC will position your company for success in today's digital landscape.