Azure Bicep

What Azure Bicep is

Azure Bicep is an infrastructure configuration tool for managing Azure resources. It uses HCL and supports Azure as its listed cloud. State management is managed, and its capabilities include policy as code, drift detection, and importing existing resources. Self-hosted execution is also supported, so users can run execution on infrastructure they host themselves. The listed platforms are Linux, macOS, Windows, and the web. Azure Bicep is free and has a free plan. These details make it relevant to people who need to define and manage Azure infrastructure while tracking configuration drift or applying policy as code. Its combination of managed state and resource import also covers parts of configuration management beyond writing definitions alone. The product information is available through Microsoft's Azure Resource Manager Bicep documentation site.

Who it suits

It suits individuals and teams configuring Azure resources who need managed state, policy as code, drift detection, or resource import. It may also fit users who require self-hosted execution or access through Linux, macOS, Windows, or the web.

Getting started

1. Open the Azure Resource Manager Bicep documentation website.
2. Choose a listed platform: Linux, macOS, web, or Windows.
3. Use Azure as the supported cloud.
4. Select self-hosted execution if it fits your setup.
5. Configure infrastructure using the listed HCL language.

Verdict

Azure Bicep brings Azure resource configuration together with managed state and capabilities such as policy as code, drift detection, and import. Its free plan and self-hosted execution are useful considerations for teams selecting an infrastructure configuration tool.