Architecture Models: Cloud, Serverless, and IaC

The modern network is no longer defined by copper cables, blinking server racks, and locked data center doors. Instead, it is defined by logic. Infrastructure has become highly abstracted, transforming firewalls, routers, and servers into lines of code deployed across distributed cloud environments. For the security professional, this abstraction is a double-edged sword. It removes the burden of managing physical security and hardware lifecycle, but it dramatically increases the complexity of identity management, configuration oversight, and application security. Understanding cloud, serverless, and code-based architecture is not merely about learning new terminology; it is about grasping how the attack surface shifts when an entire data center can be spun up—and compromised—in milliseconds.