5 exercises on the language of Infrastructure as Code — provisioning resources, applying plans, managing state, and dealing with drift.
Key verb–noun pairs in this set
provision resources — allocate and configure infrastructure
infrastructure as code — config in version control
apply a plan — the Terraform plan → apply flow
manage state & detect drift — real vs declared infrastructure
tear down / destroy — remove a provisioned stack
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A cloud engineer writes a ticket: "Before the load test, we need to ___ enough compute and storage in the test account." Which verb is the standard collocation for allocating cloud resources?
Provision resources is the standard cloud/DevOps phrase for allocating and configuring infrastructure so it is ready to use. The noun is provisioning. Collocations: provision a database, provision compute, over-provision for peak load, automated provisioning, de-provision unused resources.
supply, furnish, and equip are general English and are not used for cloud resources.
Note the related term provisioner — a tool or step that does the provisioning (e.g. a Terraform provisioner). The opposite action is de-provision or tear down.
2 / 5
Which sentence best defines Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means describing your infrastructure — servers, networks, databases — in declarative configuration files that live in version control, so it can be reviewed, reused, and applied automatically. Tools: Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible. Benefits: repeatability, peer review, and an auditable history.
Option A confuses IaC with bare-metal deployment.
Option C invents a non-existent “coding standard”.
Option D describes cloud rental, not IaC.
Key collocations: declarative config, provision with code, version-controlled infrastructure, plan and apply.
3 / 5
A Terraform user says: "The plan looks correct — let me ___ it and create the resources." Which verb completes the standard Terraform workflow phrase?
In Terraform, you apply a plan. The workflow is terraform plan (preview the changes) then terraform apply (make them real). So “apply” is the canonical verb here. Collocations: apply the plan, apply the changes, a dry-run plan, auto-approve the apply.
commit belongs to version control, not resource creation.
execute and run are understandable but not the idiomatic Terraform term — engineers say “apply”.
The destructive counterpart is terraform destroy, which tears down the managed resources.
4 / 5
Terraform keeps a record of what it has provisioned in a state file. What does it mean when an engineer says there is drift?
Drift is when the actual infrastructure diverges from what your IaC config and state say it should be — typically because someone made a change manually in the console (a “ClickOps” change) outside the tooling. You detect drift with a plan or terraform plan, which shows the difference, then reconcile it by applying or importing.
Options A, C, and D describe unrelated problems (file size, versioning, region).
Related vocabulary: manage state, a remote state backend, state lock, import existing resources, drift detection.
5 / 5
A teammate is about to delete a demo stack. Which sentence uses the most natural infrastructure collocations?
The natural combination is run destroy (or terraform destroy) to tear down the stack, then verify there is no leftover drift (orphaned resources the tool did not track). These collocate cleanly in real IaC work.
Option A misuses “scale out” on a state file.
Option C says “provision the teardown” and “apply the drift” — you reconcile drift, you don’t apply it.
Option D borrows alerting verbs (page, silence) that belong to monitoring, not infrastructure.
Core set to remember: provision resources, apply a plan, manage state, detect drift, tear down / destroy.