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DevOps & Automation · Foundational

Mutable Infrastructure

Infrastructure that is updated in place after provisioning, for example by patching or reconfiguring running servers.

Definition

Mutable infrastructure is typical of traditional configuration management with tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef. It can be faster for small changes but is prone to drift and 'snowflake' servers that are hard to reproduce.

Example

An Ansible playbook upgrades nginx on existing web servers in place.

Exam tip

Contrast with immutable infrastructure; mutable approaches need drift detection and remediation.

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