Chef for asset management

I’m considering starting a project to use Chef as the basis for an asset
management system. All of my important and most up to date information
information for my servers is already stored as node attributes in Chef.
The only thing missing is node entries for switches, SAN devices, VPN
devices, etc.

I’m wondering what anyone thinks about this idea and if there might already
be other projects started to do this?

Thanks
John

At the Summit last month this was discussed:
First discussion:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Management+of+External+Entitites
Followup with notes from previous internal discussions:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Managed+Nodes+Part+2
and Dell's short-term work-around planning for Crowbar:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/External+Entity+Hack+and+Design

Thanks,
Matt Ray
Senior Technical Evangelist | Opscode Inc.
matt@opscode.com | (512) 731-2218
Twitter, IRC, GitHub: mattray

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:55 AM, John Alberts john.m.alberts@gmail.com wrote:

I'm considering starting a project to use Chef as the basis for an asset
management system. All of my important and most up to date information
information for my servers is already stored as node attributes in Chef.
The only thing missing is node entries for switches, SAN devices, VPN
devices, etc.

I'm wondering what anyone thinks about this idea and if there might already
be other projects started to do this?

Thanks
John

Thanks for the links. I didn't realize there was already talk about
something like this. This is awesome.

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Matt Ray matt@opscode.com wrote:

At the Summit last month this was discussed:
First discussion:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Management+of+External+Entitites
Followup with notes from previous internal discussions:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Managed+Nodes+Part+2
and Dell's short-term work-around planning for Crowbar:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/External+Entity+Hack+and+Design

Thanks,
Matt Ray
Senior Technical Evangelist | Opscode Inc.
matt@opscode.com | (512) 731-2218
Twitter, IRC, GitHub: mattray

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:55 AM, John Alberts john.m.alberts@gmail.com
wrote:

I'm considering starting a project to use Chef as the basis for an asset
management system. All of my important and most up to date information
information for my servers is already stored as node attributes in Chef.
The only thing missing is node entries for switches, SAN devices, VPN
devices, etc.

I'm wondering what anyone thinks about this idea and if there might
already
be other projects started to do this?

Thanks
John

--
John Alberts

I simply track devices on my home network (consoles, phones, etc) with data bag items.

On Dec 21, 2011, at 11:02, John Alberts john.m.alberts@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for the links. I didn't realize there was already talk about something like this. This is awesome.

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Matt Ray matt@opscode.com wrote:
At the Summit last month this was discussed:
First discussion:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Management+of+External+Entitites
Followup with notes from previous internal discussions:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Managed+Nodes+Part+2
and Dell's short-term work-around planning for Crowbar:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/External+Entity+Hack+and+Design

Thanks,
Matt Ray
Senior Technical Evangelist | Opscode Inc.
matt@opscode.com | (512) 731-2218
Twitter, IRC, GitHub: mattray

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:55 AM, John Alberts john.m.alberts@gmail.com wrote:

I'm considering starting a project to use Chef as the basis for an asset
management system. All of my important and most up to date information
information for my servers is already stored as node attributes in Chef.
The only thing missing is node entries for switches, SAN devices, VPN
devices, etc.

I'm wondering what anyone thinks about this idea and if there might already
be other projects started to do this?

Thanks
John

--
John Alberts