Episode 14: Infrastructure Automation. Yeah, but where do I start?

Listen to the IT echo chamber and you will hear about automation. Different products and tools but the message is no more manual, one off configurations. Several phrases used that we will discuss. Common responses, why? Why now? How? Where does one start? This week Aaron Strong, Nathan Bennett, and Vince Wood start down the rabbit hole that is Automation. Based on the conversation, A part 2 is in the works.

In Part 1, We spoke to the following points:

• Mutable vs Immutable Infrastructure
• Long standing virtual machines vs short lived VMs
• Snowflake vs Phoenix
• Snowflake - servers are managed manually. Operators make changes to the system by hand, creating a unique deployment. Practice is common but causes problems when needing to update the system or software.
• Phoenix - Servers are created through automation. Can be risen from the ashes.
• Infrastructure as Code
• Declarative vs Imperative
• IaC
• Configuration Management
• Decrease technical dept, because configurations are stored in code repositories.
• Speed of deployments - efficiency
• Consistency of workflow

Links

• Want an example of automation in action? How about KubeDoom?
• Nathan's Blog