A Path to Achieving True Cloud PortabilityTyler FitchCustomer Success Engineer at Chef @tfitch

Define: Portability

A1: Your infrastructure is repeatable (and hopefully automated)

If you need someone to create and/or configure a serverit will be difficult to be portable

A2: You’re just a DNS change* away from new servers

* More specifically, you are your DNS’s TTL away from new, replacement or expansion servers

Gloom and Doom

Your hosting solution faces a couple of serious problems

Disaster Recovery

Photo: Iwan Baan

Your Data Center

Gloom and Doom

Your hosting solution faces a couple of serious problems

$$$

IT COSTS TOO MUCH

Joy and DelightConfiguration Management

Configuration Management

Infrastructure as code

run_list['webserver']

webserver/recipe/default.rbinclude_recipe 'nginx'

But this is not why we are here!

Joy and Delight

Machine Management

Scalr

A Cloud Management Platform.

Using a Web UI to manage your machines in your cloud(s)

Chef Metal

machine 'db' do

recipe 'postgresql'

end machine 'web1' do recipe 'nginx' end

Machines as code

Chef MetalMachines as *code*

with_machine_batch 'my_batch'

1.upto(50) do |i| machine "web#{i}" do recipe 'nginx' end end

How to Provision Machines with Chef Metal

An engineer can run it locally

Perfect for Proof of Concepts with quick iterations

But requires a person to execute the commands

Great from 9-5! Not great for the proverbial 3am issue.

How to Provision Machines with Chef Metal

Automation is better!

Let machines do the work within rules you define.

1. Nagios is monitoring your servers2. When a metric (CPU load, # connections, etc) reaches your threshold3. Nagios sends alert4. Jenkins responds to alert by spinning up new/more machines

Where to Provision Machines

A1: The place that costs you the least amount of money

A2: Your local machine.Happy engineers make applications rapidly

Where to Provision Machines

Supported providers:• OpenStack• LXC - Docker• EC2• DigitalOcean• SoftLayer• VSphere• VirtualBox• VMWare Fusion• Bare metal (SSH, no PXE yet)

• More providers are just an API away

Advantages we have gainedOps Life:

Your servers are now cattle.

They come, they go.They have important jobs, but they do not have names.

Photo: earthtimes.org

Advantages we have gainedBusiness Life:

Wheel and deal for savings with your hosting providers

Use the savings to take your engineers to Vegas

Photo: dumblittleman.com

Photo: myallinclusivedeals.com

Knowledge is Power

AKA: Always Be Learning

DISASTER RECOVERYhttp://www.slideshare.net/lnxchk/disaster-recovery-strategies-with-config-management-cfgmgmtcamp-2014

CHEF METALhttps://github.com/opscode/chef-metal

http://slides.com/jkeiser/chef-metal

Thank you

@tfitch