We don't share infrastructure code

At my software development company Kition Software, we don’t share infrastructure code with our clients. For a long time I thought of it as our secret sauce, which has to be protected. But I came to realise that chefs of famous restaurants share their recipes all the time and are still famous. So maybe my assumptions were wrong.

We typically build web software for clients who are the ultimate owner of the code produced. We, on the other hand, own and run the infrastructure through a managed service contract to ensure smooth operation. Therefore, we own all things related to infrastructure and maintenance, like Kubernetes Manifests and the actual operations and maintenance procedures.

I just recently understood the deeper reason I am against sharing our infrastructure code. Sharing the infrastructure code would be equivalent to the chef sharing how to run the restaurant itself. Even if you tried to replicate it by the letter, you wouldn’t be able to. Your premises have a different layout, you have different staff, and you are not that chef. Your restaurant would be different.

Also, you don’t want to run a restaurant… You want to eat a great meal!

So, I am against sharing infrastructure code, because we are running a chain of restaurants, whereas you just want to replicate cooking the meal for yourself. Even if you are highly capable of replicating the setup, you wouldn’t want to. You want to have a simple straightforward setup, to run your single application. That’s a lot different from our multi-application setup and processes.

That’s why we provide you with Dockerfiles, a Docker Compose stack, and the outline of basic maintenance tasks—everything you need for your kitchen.