In deployment tooling, which approach primarily provisions infrastructure, rather than configuring software on it?

In deployment tooling, which approach primarily provisions infrastructure, rather than configuring software on it?

• A. Kubernetes
• B. Ansible
• C. Terraform
• D. Docker

Answer: (C)

The key idea here is telling apart who actually creates the underlying resources from who configures software on top of those resources. Terraform is built to declare and provision infrastructure itself—creating compute resources, networks, databases, and other cloud objects across providers, then managing their lifecycle through a stateful, plan-and-apply workflow. Kubernetes is about running and managing containers once the infrastructure exists, handling deployments, scaling, and networking inside a cluster. Ansible focuses on configuring software on machines that already exist—installing packages, setting up services, and applying system configurations. Docker packages and runs applications inside containers but doesn’t by itself create the underlying machines or cloud resources. So Terraform is the best fit because it’s specifically used to provision infrastructure in a reproducible, code-driven way.

The key idea here is telling apart who actually creates the underlying resources from who configures software on top of those resources. Terraform is built to declare and provision infrastructure itself—creating compute resources, networks, databases, and other cloud objects across providers, then managing their lifecycle through a stateful, plan-and-apply workflow.

Kubernetes is about running and managing containers once the infrastructure exists, handling deployments, scaling, and networking inside a cluster. Ansible focuses on configuring software on machines that already exist—installing packages, setting up services, and applying system configurations. Docker packages and runs applications inside containers but doesn’t by itself create the underlying machines or cloud resources.

So Terraform is the best fit because it’s specifically used to provision infrastructure in a reproducible, code-driven way.