The document discusses a developer's insights into Cloud Foundry operations, focusing on deployment strategies, incident management, and monitoring practices during a one-month experience. Key elements include zero-downtime deployments, operational enablers like BOSH and immutable infrastructure, and the importance of a strong monitoring system. The author emphasizes the platform's role in shielding developers from low-level operational details while enhancing efficiency and collaboration.

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A Developer’s Perspective on
Cloud Foundry Operations:
One Month in the Trenches
CF Summit 2015
Cornelia Davis, Director, Platform Engineering, Cloud Foundry  @cdavisafc
May 2015

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Goals
 Principles
 Deployments
 Monitoring
 Stories
 Platform

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Deployment Topology
Jumpbox
ssh
Bosh cli
Microbosh
S3RDS
Full BOSH
(cluster)
S3RDS
cf-release
(cluster)
diego
(cluster)
Pivotal Web
Services
S3
RDS
Route53
domain cfapps.io
domain pivotal.io
domain …
ELB
cert *.cfapps.io
ELB
cert run.pivotal.io
ELB
cert …

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Doing Deployments
 Planned ones during working hours!
– We can because Cloud Foundry enables zero downtime
– Developers on hand
 Different types:
– New Release
– Stemcell upgrade – i.e. Heartbleed
– Manifest only – change the topology; i.e. increase the number of DEAs
minutes
hours

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The one about the incident…
 Spike in traffic expected and app instances scaled
 Increased loggregator traffic
– Logs being dropped
 Scale number of loggregators
 Manifest only deploy
bosh deploy

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Doing Deployments
 We do them during working hours!
– We can because Cloud Foundry enables zero downtime
– Developers on hand
 Different types:
– New Release
– Stemcell upgrade – i.e. Heartbleed
– Manifest only – change the topology; i.e. increase the number of DEAs
 Release previously tested in a staging environment
– Separate env: BOSH, storage, etc.
– Shared package cache  compilation previously completed
– Same Tests
minutes
hours

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Pipelines - Example
CF Runtime
CF Services
Runtime: Dev a MastServices: Dev a Mast
Svc: Mast a CR; RT: Mast a CR
Dijon Tabasco
A1
Prod
Services: Dev; Runtime: CR Services: CR; Runtime: Dev
Services: Mast; Runtime: Mast
Services: Rel; Runtime: Rel
Svc: CR a Rel; RT: CR a Rel
Shared
Package
Cache

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Deployment Checklist: New Release
Pre-deployment:
 Socialization – talk to related groups
 Get the latest from github (put there by dev team)
 Generate release notes (yes, this is automated
too!)
 Generate final release
Deployment:
 Log into jumpbox
 git pull
 Generate new deployment manifest (from
templates and prod config)
 Log into bosh
 Upload release
 Bosh deploy – verify the diffs BOSH reports
Checklist for each
type of deployment
Post-deployment:
 Publish final release (into github)
 Update checklists

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Monitoring
Cloudops
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Lamb
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Pivotal
Web
Services
Cloudops
Logstash
Lamb
Logstash
system
metrics
Collector
Syslogconfig
system
logs

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The one about continuous delivery…
Dev Space
mock
customerDBenv config
Staging Space
customerDBenv config
Prod Space
customerDBenv config
Staging Prod

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Monitoring
Cloudops
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Lamb
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Pivotal
Web
Services
Pager Duty
Cloudops
Logstash
Lamb
Logstash
system
metrics
Collector
Syslogconfig
system
logs

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Monitoring
Cloudops
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Lamb
Dashboard
(Datadog)
Pivotal
Web
Services
Pager Duty
Slack &
Slackbots
Cloudops
Logstash
Lamb
Logstash
system
metrics
Collector
Syslogconfig
system
logs
Status
Page
Smoke
TestsPingdom

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What About App Ops?  Different Team
Database
Web
Server
Messaging
Your Application
Code
PAAS
Virtualized
Infrastructure
PAAS
Platform Operations
Application Developers
Application Operations
• Deploys platform
• Makes standard runtimes and services
available
• Monitors platform
• Scales platform
(ensuring sufficient capacity)
• Upgrades platform with zero-downtime
• Creates deployable
artifact
• Config Prod space
• Deploys application to Prod
• Monitors application
• Scales application (capacity)
• Deploys new app version with
zero downtime.

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The one about ephemeral ports…
…
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/91. Done (00:01:06)
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/92. Done (00:01:06)
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/93. Done (00:01:06)
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/94. Done (00:01:06)
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/95. Done (00:01:06)
Started updating job runner_z1 > runner_z1/96. Failed
Ephemeral Port Range: 32768 to 61000
Punchline: Great value brought by
platform includes shielding app
teams (dev and ops) from obscure,
low level details that have nothing to
do with satisfying business needs!

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Summary
 It was an AWESOME month!
 I still lack “traditional ops” experience… I’m glad 
 Operational enablers in the platform:
– BOSH!!
– Immutable infrastructure
– Infrastructure as code - everything checked into Github!
– Firehose (instrumentation of the Platform!!)
– Canaries and rolling upgrades

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Blogs
 Revelations From the Field – Life in the Operations Team
(the one about the loggregator scaling) http://blog.pivotal.io/cloud-foundry-
pivotal/p-o-v/revelations-from-the-field-life-in-the-operations-team
 Is Continuous Delivery a First Class Concern of Your Platform?
(the one about dashboards) http://blog.pivotal.io/cloud-foundry-
pivotal/products/is-continuous-delivery-a-first-class-concern-of-your-platform
 Cloud Foundry Ops: Ephemeral Ports and the Value of a Platform as a
Service
(the one about, well, ephemeral ports)http://blog.pivotal.io/cloud-foundry-
pivotal/p-o-v/cloud-foundry-ops-ephemeral-ports-and-the-value-of-a-
platform-as-a-service

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Thank You
@cdavisafc