Hi,
I was just wondering what is the typical use of chef for the users in
this mailing list. It seems to me that the majority of chef’s users
are ruby shops, or otherwise web/lb/db companies with a hosting or
cloud infrastructure.
Am I alone in using chef as a configuration tool for any type of
server (mail, ldap, kerberos, gateway, router) or workstation in an
academic scenario?
Best Regards
Miguel Cabeça
You might be, but you seem to have a just as valid reason to use Chef as
anyone else 
There are probably so many Ruby shops involved simply because Chef is
implemented on top of Ruby, and thus is easy for everyone to understand /
debug / maintain.
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Miguel Cabeça cabeca@ist.utl.pt wrote:
Hi,
I was just wondering what is the typical use of chef for the users in this
mailing list. It seems to me that the majority of chef's users are ruby
shops, or otherwise web/lb/db companies with a hosting or cloud
infrastructure.Am I alone in using chef as a configuration tool for any type of server
(mail, ldap, kerberos, gateway, router) or workstation in an academic
scenario?Best Regards
Miguel Cabeça
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Miguel Cabeça cabeca@ist.utl.pt wrote:
Am I alone in using chef as a configuration tool for any type of server
(mail, ldap, kerberos, gateway, router) or workstation in an academic
scenario?
We use configuration management for all of our linux servers and
workstations. In our network Chef is slowly replacing puppet/iclassify
as services need to be redeployed. We do have a web based product, but
that isn't a line of delineation between servers that are managed with
CM and those that are not. There's a number of great reasons for using
CM in regular system administration, It will likely be some time
before more people try CM and accept these benefits. I certainly
wouldn't work for a shop without it again.
Bryan
Hi Miguel,
I'm not using Chef in production, but my interest is the same as yours:
general system administration for many non-web services. Though my
environment is non-academic (it's a software company making EDA software
that designs chips for companies like Intel, Nokia, Sony, etc.), it's mostly
software engineering, regression testing, QA, grid servers, benchmark
servers, etc.
I want tools like Chef to displace the very sub-optimal "enterprise" tools
out there. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a perception problem when
things are associated with the web as being a different beast in
organizations like mine, but it's a conversation I'm used to having 
Andy
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Miguel Cabeça cabeca@ist.utl.pt wrote:
Hi,
I was just wondering what is the typical use of chef for the users in this
mailing list. It seems to me that the majority of chef's users are ruby
shops, or otherwise web/lb/db companies with a hosting or cloud
infrastructure.Am I alone in using chef as a configuration tool for any type of server
(mail, ldap, kerberos, gateway, router) or workstation in an academic
scenario?Best Regards
Miguel Cabeça
On Apr 28, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Miguel Cabeça wrote:
Am I alone in using chef as a configuration tool for any type of
server (mail, ldap, kerberos, gateway, router) or workstation in an
academic scenario?
I hope you're not alone! As Bryan said, configuration management is
important for the whole environment, not just web servers/services.
This is one reason we have non-web-specific cookbooks in the opscode/
cookbooks repository. We understand that people may want to run DNS
servers (djbdns, maradns), central authentication (openldap), mail
servers and relays (postfix), HA clusters (heartbeat, drbd),
centralized logging (rsyslog), internal ticketing systems (jira,
redmine), VPN (openvpn) and yes, even voice communications
(teamspeak :-D).
Except perhaps the latter, these are all common infrastructure
services, and we provided the cookbooks as a baseline for people to
modify for their own environments. Not necessarily just Ruby on Rails
environments.
--
Joshua Timberman | www.opscode.com
joshua@opscode.com | 720.878.4322
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:28 AM, andy andiacts@gmail.com wrote:
I want tools like Chef to displace the very sub-optimal "enterprise" tools
out there. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a perception problem when
things are associated with the web as being a different beast in
organizations like mine, but it's a conversation I'm used to having
It's one that will hopefully happen less and less often. I've been
noticing a trend lately that many formerly 'enterprise' IT shops are
starting to manage their internal infrastructure in a way that is
essentially indistinguishable from how the 'lean' web shops are doing
it. The difference is the policy layers around the management.
We're certainly committed to enabling those policy layers.
Adam
--
Opscode, Inc.
Adam Jacob, CTO
T: (206) 508-4759 E: adam@opscode.com