Final answer:
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the preferred practice for ensuring consistent configuration and reproducibility of bugs in a DevOps setting, as it allows management of infrastructure through code.
Step-by-step explanation:
When planning an application deployment using DevOps practices with a need to ensure consistent configuration and reproducibility of bugs, the most applicable strategy would be Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This practice involves managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. By doing this, you ensure that the environment setup is version-controlled, testable, and repeatable, which is crucial for spotting where and why bugs occur.
In contrast, continuous integration and continuous deployment focus on the integration of code changes and automating the deployment process respectively, while configuration as code is more specifically about the settings and operational aspects encoded into readable files. Utilizing Infrastructure as Code, you can create a blueprint of the environment that can be used to spin up identical environments to mimic the production setup. This practice is a key component of an efficient DevOps cycle and aids tremendously in minimizing variation between environments, hence making bugs easier to replicate and fix.