# Chef in a Windows monoculture - success examples?

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-in-a-windows-monoculture-success-examples/9733>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [October 20, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-in-a-windows-monoculture-success-examples/9733 "2016-10-20T15:56:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![PeterBurkholder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/peterburkholder/32/52_2.png) [@PeterBurkholder](https://discourse.chef.io/u/PeterBurkholder)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-in-a-windows-monoculture-success-examples/9733/7 "2016-10-22T02:47:18Z")

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Thanks for weighing in Spuder. I'm glad to hear that Chef is working out for you w/ the FE windows servers. I have no question around whether Chef works in Windows environment as a _technology_, but whether it succeeds in a Windows _culture_.

To make an analogy, if 10 years ago you'd come to me in my Linux shop and asked me to trust my automation to a tool running on, and built for, Windows, I would've been deaf and blind to any strengths of the tech as such, because the culture around operations would have been so foreign to me.

I worry that Chef brought in by management or a few enthusiasts to Windows-centered shops will fail because the dominant culture will be infertile ground, perhaps despite the best intentions of the dev&ops teams.

So, I'd like to know if there are case studies where Chef has succeed in shops with essentially zero Unix footprint. I posted the same question on Twitter and have two examples:

1 - MSN [https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/DevOps-Dimension/3--MSN-and-Universal-Store-Combining-PaaS-with-Configuration-Management](https://t.co/WHGhDQO8gV) (Thanks to Matt Ray)

2 - NCR Corp (Thanks to Michael Hedgepeth)

Are those the only two? And what needed to happen internally for Chef to succeed? Michael already noted

> @pburkholder I've found @chef to be an easy sell to development org, especially if I show them powershell integration  
> @pburkholder we are 90% windows - the \*unix acceptance came before this - the traditional windows culture was the biggest barrier

Others ideas how to break through traditional windows culture?

Thanks! -Peter

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