What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Correct answer: Defining and provisioning infrastructure through code and automation rather than manual processes

Option C is correct because Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning compute, network, and storage resources through machine-readable configuration files and automation tools rather than through manual processes or interactive consoles, enabling repeatability, version control, and consistency. Option A is incorrect because IaC is a software practice for managing cloud or virtual infrastructure; building physical servers is a data center hardware activity unrelated to IaC. Option B is incorrect because programming directly against cloud APIs is a lower-level approach to resource management, whereas IaC abstracts that into declarative or imperative templates managed as code artifacts. Option D is incorrect because writing application code refers to building software logic, while IaC specifically addresses the infrastructure layer that the application runs on.