1. TAMING THE INFRASTRUCTURE
GONE WILD
Isaac Christoffersen
Contributing Partner - Open Source Solutions,
Colloquium
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
2. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
–
–
–
–
–
CONFIGURATION DRIFT
SYSTEMS ENTROPY
STAFFING ATROPHY
GOLD IMAGE
SOFTWARE STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY
3. A NEW SERVER ROOM – COMPLETE WITH THAT “NEW CAR” SMELL
Room for
expansion
Cables all neatly
tied and out of
the way.
6. PROVISIONING INFRASTRUCTURE IS HARD.
I need 3 servers to use
for the development of a
proof of concept. It's
going to be the next big
thing!
Process
Procurement Process
Order Fulfillment Process
Staff Recruitment & Hiring
Policy
Service Level Agreements
Budgets
Staffing Guidance
Infrastructure
Tools
Linux
Xen
Hyperic & Drools
Cobbler & Koan
Puppet
Commodity Servers
SANs
Networking Equipment
Power
HVAC Systems
People
Linux Administrators
SAN Engineers
Network Engineers
7. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
–
–
–
–
–
CONFIGURATION DRIFT
SYSTEMS ENTROPY
STAFFING ATROPHY
GOLD IMAGE
TEETERING STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY
8. SMELL :: CONFIGURATION DRIFT
• Any change outside a baseline
configuration is considered a
configuration drift.
• Could be an accidental or incidental or
intentional.
• Early identification will minimize
impact and reduce the risks around
business continuity.
10. SMELL :: SYSTEMS ENTROPY
As a system is modified, its disorder, or entropy,
always increases.
• Similar to theories in software development, a
system that is used will be modified.
• When a system is modified, its complexity will
increase, provided that one is not actively working
to reduce complexity.
11. PRESCRIPTION :: SEPARATION OF CONCERNS
How can I build my web hosting business?
How can I manage my customer relationships?
How can I run my company's IT department?
How can I collaborate across the enterprise?
How can I view my corporate sales data?
How do I store & retrieve my inventory data?
How do I deploy my web services?
How do I get the most of my IT and
personnel resources?
Data
Center
Software
Platform
Infrastructure
12. SMELL :: STAFFING ATROPHY
“Atrophy is the partial or complete
wasting away of a part of the body.
Causes include lack of exercise and/or
use”
15. PRESCRIPTION :: USE CONTINUOUS PROVISIONING
Consistent, repeatable builds encourage fast
deployment and consistently identical
systems without the burden of managing
images
A repeatable build improves product
quality, reduces the mundane tasks
and minimizes dependencies on key
people.
build
cycle
Software
packages
17. PRESCRIPTION :: CONTAINER PARTITIONING
Virtualization can reduce cost while also improving flexibility…
Cluster multiple physical servers to gain failover capabilities
Share resources across physical servers
source: “Automated failover and recovery of virtualized guests
in Advanced Platform”, Rob Kenna, Redhat Magazine
18. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
–
–
–
–
–
CONFIGURATION DRIFT
SYSTEMS ENTROPY
STAFFING ATROPHY
GOLD IMAGE
SOFTWARE STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY
