Re:Puppet vs Chef, Fight
by technomancy on Sunday October 09, 2011 @05:51PM
(#3091436)
> In fact, you should be using Puppet or Chef even if you're
> just one guy with just one server to manage.
>
> If you need to replace the box with faster hardware, for
> example, just run Puppet on the new box, and it will (if
> you have done your job properly) become identical to the
> new one.
If you've done your job right with the shell script, the same will be true. The problem is that if you have more than N nodes, "doing the job right" becomes more difficult. However N is quite obviously greater than one.
The reason is that by encoding your configuration in a metalanguage such as Puppet's, you have described your environment independent of the actual box. If the box goes down and you need to swap in a new one, you just run Puppet again, and it will magically turn into the old box.
If you need to replace the box with faster hardware, for example, just run Puppet on the new box, and it will (if you have done your job properly) become identical to the new one. Suddenly need 10 boxes to handle a load spike? Just boot up 10 cloud VMs and point them at the Puppet server.
Since these systems are modular and lightweight, you can easily describe hundreds of vastly different boxes using a single configuration.