In a talk at Paris in 2009, Mark Burgess presents Cfengine 3, the new version of the famous configuration management software, and the fundamental theory on which it is based, the promise theory.

1. Cfengine Reborn – Keeping Promises
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2. Some users of Cfengine
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3. The future is not certain
• We encourage it but we
do not decide it
• It is about simple
patterns that are
robust
• There are no
guarantees, but we
can try to keep
promises
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4. Configuration Management
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5. Promise Technology
 Based on Promise Theory research
 Puts goals not recipes in focus
– Goals are invariants, recipes depend on
circumstances
– Simple connection to “Service Level
Agreements”
– Easy to measure compliance
 A promise is a documentation item
– Knowledge integration
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6. Cfengine aspects
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7. Convergence = self-healing
 Promises focus on the end state (desired state)
not on fragile procedures and baselines
 We automate repair using Cfengine's published
convergence principle
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8. Pull not push – scale and security
 Every node is responsible for its own state
– Allows flat scalability (no bottlenecks)
– Allows detailed adaptation to local environment (each host
knows its own environment best)
 Hosts subscribe to external resources they need
– Software Package manager integration
– Policy updates from orchestrator when available
 Push attacks a system, pull grants autonomy to all parts of the
network and it fault tolerant of network outage (for wireless,
pervasive, field operations etc)
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9. Agile, elastic scaling
?
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10. Knowledge Management
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11. Reporting – Knowledge Management
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12. Unique self-building documentation
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13. Cfengine Nova Extras
• Now
– One touch bootstrap
– Self-knowledge / analysis document integration
– Ultra lightweight monitoring integrated
– Native cross-platform support includes Windows
– Enhanced security (FIPS)
– Directory service integration with fault tolerance
– Virtualization and elastic scaling support
• 3-6 months
– Cfengine 2 to Nova conversion
– GUI “helm” single point of contact and change
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14. The Company and Partners
Cfengine AS
Oslo
Norway
Cfengine Inc
Tampa
USA
Tel: +47 22 95 85 00
Fax: +47 22 60 44 27
Mail: Contact@cfengine.com
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