On 9/22/10 12:16 PM, "Les Mikesell" <lesmikes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, no. I don't consider reading and sometimes responding to things
> on a mail list as being fed. Or that I have anything to lose from
> having an opinion that differs from yours. So far I don't think
> cfengine does what I need but it is interesting enough to watch.
Fair enough, but I'd like to expand this based upon my own personal
experience...
Based upon my trials and tribulations (over the past 10 years), no tool does
what I need it to out of the box. This is the same for bcfg, blade logic,
cfengine, isconf, puppet, etc (alpha order). Each consists of a steep
learning curve, followed by waves of understanding (including understanding
the shortcomings that must be worked around), and then a somewhat
site-specific mastery that typically involves process and tool development
outside the configuration management platform itself.
Configuration management really is a discipline unto itself, which requires
a lot of time and planning to do right. I feel this is an obvious shift the
industry has slowly acknowledged, but still needs work to fully understand.
For example, being asked to "just make configuration management happen" as
an extra hat to wear without any insight into the development lifecycle or
guiding principles usually won't have desirable effects.
Any tool one selects will take some time to understand and extend. I'm glad
to hear Nova is attempting to offer a boxed solution to many of the hurdles
IT management faces with configuration management, but realistically expect
to do a fair amount of work integrating any new tool with our environments.
I've experienced the same amount of "integration" work in commercial
solutions charging thousands just to license the endpoints.
--
Mike Hoskins : micho...@cisco.com : +1 (415) 506-UNIX (8649)
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
-- Elbert Hubbard
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