My 2007 UKUUG presentation on Agile Systems Administration.

1. Agile Systems Administration
Julian Simpson, ThoughtWorks Ltd.

2. Who the hell are you?
● I am Julian Simpson
● I've been a Solaris Admin since 1997
● Now that I work on software projects I need
excuses to do interesting things like this

3. And what's this Agile business?
● Agile is an iterative and incremental
(evolutionary) approach to software
development
● which is performed in a highly collaborative
manner
● with "just enough" ceremony
● that produces high quality software
● which meets the changing needs of its
stakeholders. (Scott W Ambler)

4. Programming before Agile ...

5. Otto, since you checked in that last
change, I can't deploy the application ...
it works on my machine ...

6. And after ...

7. Otto, you broke the build ...
Oh, I didn't check in
FooBarImpl.java ... thanks

8. CruiseControl helps us in
Agile software projects ...

10. But is it any use in an
infrastructure context? ...

11. So I decided to find out: by
building a web and mail
server using Puppet, Rake,
Ruby, SVN and
CruiseControl

12. Ruby
● Dynamic Language
like Perl
● Object oriented
● has a good testing
framework
● big in Japan

13. Puppet
● Sysadmin framework
● Very open
● Declarative
● Developed by a
sysadmin for
sysadmins

14. Rake
● Make, for Ruby

15. Subversion
● favourite source control

16. cruisecontrol
● Continuous
Integration tool
● listens for Subversion
commits and
executes Rake
● available in Java,
.NET and Ruby
versions

17. How does it all work then?
● all configuration is in source control

18. How does it all work then?
● changes are picked up by cruisecontrol

19. How does it all work then?
● Cruise runs rake to run tests against the config

20. How does it all work then?
● Puppet applies the config if the tests pass

21. How does it all work then?
● Other puppet clients in your network can now
retrieve the tested version of your configuration
and apply it.

22. What is the benefit?
● you always apply configuration that is tested
● you can version your configuration

23. What is the benefit?
● status is visible to everybody
● and you can even drive a lava lamp off of it

24. Short Film

25. What do you think?

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