This document discusses Relay, a new project that aims to provide a complete solution for continuously deploying applications and infrastructure. Relay will orchestrate actions across existing tools and services by listening to cloud events and triggers from services. It will use a taxonomy of reusable, modular workflow steps that can be combined to build workflows as code in YAML. The document provides examples of step types like trigger steps, action steps, and query steps. It also outlines Relay's integration ecosystem and upcoming release timeline.

1. Relay:
The Next Leg
Eric Sorenson // eric@puppet.com // @ahpook

2. /usr/bin/whoami
sysadmin / sre / bad coder
large scale config mgmt practitioner
technical product manager
guitarist and synthesist
pinball game renter

3. 3

4. On-prem Cloud
Cloud adoption has shifted the centre of
gravity for automation
• Event-driven orchestration
• APIs, services, serverless, K8s,
container platforms
• Configuration management is a
smaller part of the infra stack
• Model/task-driven automation
• OSs, hardware, apps, VMs, hypervisor
• Configuration management is king
Tomorrow
Today

5. I need a complete solution to
continuously deploy applications
and infrastructure that provides:
● Simple deployment workflows built
on using existing tools
● Support for multiple deployment
targets
● Includes smart canaries, B/G
deployments & automated rollback
● Lightweight governance and
auditability
● Application deployment
performance insights
Nebula
Project Nebula
DEPLOY
BUILD +
TEST
PROVISION ROLLBACK
DEVOPS
APP DEV
GitOps CLI CI
Existing
CI tools
Step Ecosystem

6. Cloud
Native
Resource
Creation
CN
Resource
Orchestration
CN
Workflow
Automation
Lyra
endgame
● Combine forces with Nebula
● Contribute upstream to Tekton / CDF
● Integrate with other adjacent projects

7. Lesson 1: CD is Hard. Really Hard.
source: jamesbowman.me

8. Lesson 2: Events Are Everywhere

9. Lesson 3: 'Ware The DevOps Dumping Ground
source: tirefi.re

10. Relay is a system of intelligence that pulls together all the tools and
technologies you need to effectively manage your environment.
Secrets
AI/ML/data
Triggers
Workflows
K8s
Serverless
Cloud storage
CI/CD Tools
Config Mgmt
Orchestrate actions
across downstream
tools and services
Cloud events
Listen to events from
the services that you
already use
Incidents
Tickets
Git events
Monitoring

11. Trigger steps are based on cloud
events, git events, monitoring
alerts, tickets, and incidents – like
a Splunk alert, a Cloudwatch
alert, a GitHub PR being merged,
etc.
Action steps are reusable,
modular, and composable--things
like destroying old EC2 instances,
provisioning environments with
Terraform, or clearing unattached
EBS volumes.
Query steps let you break out of
a workflow to wait for an external
process like manual approval or a
callback from another system.
Step Taxonomy

12. Workflows-as-Code YAML
Parameters prompt the user for data input at
runtime to customize the behaviour of the
workflow. Values can be supplied interactively,
via API, or on CLI.
Secrets are stored securely server-side using
Hashicorp Vault, referenced in a workflow
using the "!Secret" tag.
Output tags enable data from previous steps
to be used by ones that come later.

13. Integration Ecosystem
A library of useful integrations that cover the
most common use cases and external services
with sample workflows and well-documented
steps that let you remix and combine however
you want.
Low-friction interoperability if you have
existing containers that you want to use in
Relay workflows, they can drop right in
alongside purpose-built integrations.
Easy step authoring if you've built something
that other people might find useful or want to
contribute to existing steps

14. 14
Coming Real Soon Now™ (early Northern Hemisphere summer)
Sign up for the notification list! https://relay.sh/
Join us in Slack for Q&A and early access: #relay
Thank you!
Eric Sorenson // eric@puppet.com // @ahpook