Why Startups Need Automated Infrastructures

Why Startups Need Automated Infrastructures Adam Jacob Senior Partner HJK Solutions [email_address] .com

Overview
What is an “Automated Infrastructure”?
Why is it so important?
MonkeyNews - A Case Study
Review
Q & A

Disclaimer
These are the tools we use
They are not the only tools
They may or may not be the right tools for how you work or think
Symbol From IIT Bombay

What is an “Automated Infrastructure”?

Automated
”…a process which may once have been performed manually but has been altered in some way which allows a machine or computer to either wholly or partially manipulate the process to save time”

Infrastructure
“Infrastructure is generally a set of interconnected structural elements that provide the framework supporting an entire structure”

Automated Infrastructure
“Having the basic services necessary for your business to operate largely without the aid of a keeper.”

Why is it so important?

To your Operations Staff
Mitigates some failures
They want to be lazy
Repetition leads to burnout
They want to say “Yes”

For Startups
Time
Efficiency
Scalability
Economics
Flexibility

The Jesse Robbins (mis)Quote
“ Operations is the act of extracting value from your resources.”

MonkeyNews - A Case Study All the hottest Monkey news, as selected by your monkey-loving peers! Courtesy National Geographic

What is MonkeyNews
Small Startup
“ Like Digg, only about Monkeys”
Going to sell Advertising as a revenue model

MonkeyNews on Launch Day

Steps to Launch

Steps to Launch - OS Install
Manual
Install each system by hand
1 hour per system

Automated
Ops1prod built manually
1 hour
Automated install system (PXE)
EC2, Cloud

Steps to Launch - DNS
Manual
Update each machine in /etc/hosts
Automated
Install a DNS Server
Use a service provider

Steps to Launch - Server Inventory
Manual
Use a wiki
Automated
Use iClassify
Roll your own

Steps to Launch - Identity Management
Manual
Add each user everywhere
Automated
Use LDAP or AD

Steps to Launch - Version Control
An Easy One
You must use version control

Steps to Launch - Configuration Management
Manual
Version Control
Wiki
Check in copies of config files
Try and keep a record of what you have done

Automated
Puppet
Cfengine
Bcfg2
Infrastructure as Code

Puppet Example - sudo

Automation is Key
50+ Different Applications
ad, apache2, apt-proxy, beaver, build-essential, capistrano, yum, apt, djbdns, emacs, erubis, rubygems, iclassify, imagemagick, iptables, java, logrotate, man, maradns, memcached, mongrel-runit, munin, mysql, nagios, nscd, ntp, openldap, openssh, perl, perlbal, php, postfix, postgresql, puppet, rails, resolver, rsync, ruby, runit, sqlite, subversion, sudo, trac, zsh
Why repeat yourself?

Steps to Launch - Monitoring
Manual
Add each server by hand
Automated
Use your System Inventory and Configuration Management Tools

Steps to Launch - Trending
Manual
Add each server and graph by hand
Automated
Use your System Inventory and Configuration Management Tools

Steps to Launch - Email
Another Easy One
Every server must be able to send email locally.

Steps to Launch - Application Deployment
Manual
Update the application by hand
Automated
Use Capistrano
Roll your own
Integrate with System Inventory

Launch Day

Tech Crunched!
Symptoms
Monitors alert
Trending shows the traffic spike
Your RSS reader has the culprit

Tech Crunched! - EC2
Launch more capacity.
Two minutes later, they are up

Tech Crunched! - iClassify
Classify the Servers

Tech Crunched! - Puppet
Puppet applies the class that matches the tag:

Tech Crunched! - Deploy
Deploy your application!
“ cap -S env=prod deploy”
One command.

Tech Crunched! - Post Mortem
Total Time: ~5 - 10 minutes
4 steps total!
We doubled capacity
No configuration during the issue at all

New Hire
Issue
MonkeyNews hires a new engineer
Resolution
Add the user to LDAP
Add the right group privileges

Add SSL Support
Issue
MonkeyNews has started taking micro-payments (for bananas)
Resolution
Update Apache Virtual Host in your Configuration Management
Add the SSL Certificates to Configuration Management
< 10 minutes from start to finish

Review

Review
Automated Infrastructure means:
“ Having the basic services necessary for your business to operate largely without the aid of a keeper.”
Automated Infrastructure
Saves time
Increases efficiency
Allows for scalability
Reduces economic impact
Improves flexibility

HJK does this for a living. But you can ask me how to do it for free. :) Adam Jacob +1 (206) 508-4759 [email_address]

June 23-24, 2008 20% off discount: “vel08js”

http://blog.hjksolutions.com	609
http://mediakey.dk	60
http://www.slideshare.net	34
http://www.informationweek.com	11
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	2
http://blog.hjksolutions.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com	2
https://s3.amazonaws.com	2
http://itlab.wordpress.com	1
http://www.linkedin.com	1
http://www.techgig.com	1
http://74.125.155.132	1
http://devel2.informationweek.com:9013	1
http://209.85.135.104	1
http://dotbootstrap.x2q.net	1

Why Startups Need Automated Infrastructures

by Adam Jacob

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

14 Embeds 727

Statistics

Why Startups Need Automated Infrastructures Presentation Transcript