Rundeck is an open source automation platform that allows users to define, schedule, and execute jobs across multiple servers to automate system administration tasks. It was started in 2010 and has over 100 contributors. Rundeck provides a web interface, API, and CLI to define workflows and orchestrate tasks. It supports plugins for popular DevOps tools and can integrate with other systems like ITSM tools. Rundeck Enterprise provides additional features like high availability, security controls, and support.

1. Photo: Gooseberry Falls, MN

2. • Self-Service Operations Platform
• Mission: Reduce Toil via Self-Service Ops
• Started in 2010
• 10,600+ commits
• 123+ releases
• 100+ contributors
• 50k+ Community Users
• Rundeck Enterprise
• Human Support!
• High Availability
• Cluster Remote Execution
• Access Control Management
• Complex Workflows
• Enterprise Plugins
• Rundeck Open-Source Project

3. 2020
OpsDigital and DevOps
Availability Auditing
Security Compliance
"Go faster! Open up!” “Lock it down!”
Business
Input
Feedback
Running
Services
OpsDev
We’ve invested in Cloud, Agile, DevOps, Containers…
Why does everything still take too long and cost too
much?
Executive Team
Our transformation has
largely ignored Ops

4. Traditional coping mechanisms aren’t working.

5. Fewer tickets. More self-service. Less Toil!

6. Operations as a Service Use Case
“Rundeck helps keep Ops out of the way of the business”
-Jordan Koch (Disney)
“Rundeck gives people access, but leaves ops in control of the
policy”
-Mark Maun (Ticketmaster)

7. Scheduled Operations Tasks Big Data and ETL
Deployment Automation Container Orchestration
Other Popular Use Cases

8. Implementation Highlights
• “Rundeck as a Service” empowering
multiple business lines
• Orchestrates formerly manual tasks
• Connects different tools and scripts
• Each app teams manage their own
services through Rundeck
• Also provides secure and controlled
access to offshore teams to do Ops
activity in regulated environments
Fortune 50
Aerospace
• Civilian and Gov. contracts
• Business in 75+ countries
• 100,000+ employees

9. Strategy: Self-Service improves response times
https://youtu.be/USYrDaPEFtM
Jody Mulkey at DOES ‘15 SF
Services Monitoring Scripts/Tools Services Monitoring Scripts/ToolsServices Monitoring Scripts/Tools
DEV STAGE PROD
Dev & QA NOC/Ops Dev
Promote
approved
jobs
Self-Service Self-Service
Empower

10. Strategy: Self-Service improves consistency &compliance
Shaun Norris at DOES ‘18 London & Vegas
https://youtu.be/d5IMvK0YHTg
Optimized for compliance
• 86,000+ employees
• 60+ countries
• Highly regulated
So far in 2018:
• >350,000 jobs across >400 applications
• TTR reduced by 25 minutes/incident
• ~200 Cust. Impacting incidents
Next year, Rundeck is going to save us
about 28 people-years worth of work,
at fairly conservative estimates. And,
we haven’t even rolled it out
particularly widely yet. This has been a
huge win for us.

11. Does any of this feel familiar….

12. I don’t know
how to do X.
I know how
to do X.
I know how
to do Y.
I don’t know
how to do Y.
“Do X”
“Define Y
Procedure”
“Define X
Procedure”
“Do Y”
“Do X+Y”
Self-Service

13. Environment
I could fix it if I
could get to it
Environment
O
a
a
S
I’ve got this!
Context
Tools
Enablement and tooling

14. docs
Service has changed. Use this flag or
bad things will happen!
Pause monitoring first or
we all get woken up!
“restart -doit -now”
I’ve done this before.
I’ve got this…
Environment
docs
Later…
Self-Service
Service has changed. This flag is now
required or bad things will happen!
Pause monitoring first or
we all get woken up!
Update
Restart Job
“restart”
Environment
Later…
✅
I’ve done this before.
I’ve got this.
Self-Service
Instead…

15. Web GUI API
CLIIdentity Federation
Domain Services
SSO
Key Store / Security
Automation
Version Control
Logging CommunicationsIssue Tracking
Server Infrastructure
VM’s
Cloud Infrastructure
Containers
Network
Database
Spreadsheet
Text.yaml
NODE DETAILS
NODE STATE
AGENTLESS

16. Domain Services
Web GUI API
CLI
Infrastructure / State
Key Store / Security
AutomationCommsIssue Tracking Logging
Version Control

17. Supported Community Plugins
Ansible, AWS, GCP, Azure, Chef, Puppet, K8’s,
Docker, Jira, Unix Utilities, WinRM, Github, VMWare
Rundeck Enterprise Exclusive
ServiceNow, SQL Runner, Windows PowerShell
Tools, Splunk, VMWare, JIRA, Okta
Exclusive to Rundeck Enterprise
Clustering & HA Enterprise Grade PluginsAccess Rules Builder
Advanced WorkflowEnterprise Support Enhanced UI
Expert Support
Onboarding Services
Health Checks

18. Effort Effectiveness
Customer Appreciation
Delays & Interruptions
Management overhead
- How Users Measure ROI

19. Plugins

20. Cluster Manager
Load Balancer VIP
API CLI ToolsWeb GUI
ActiveActive Passive
Single Cluster
1 Cluster
includes
2 Instances
Cluster for HA

21. Profile 2
Allowed Tags: Ops, Batch
Policy: Round Robin
Front End
instances just
handle UI access
Worker instances
just handle
execution
Worker
Cluster Manager
Load Balancer VIP
API CLI ToolsWeb GUI
Web UIWeb UI
Worker
Single Cluster
Tag Batch Tag BatchTag PCI Tag PCI Tag OPSTag OPS
Profile 1
Allowed Tags: PCI
Policy: Random
Profile 3
Allowed Tags: Batch
Policy: Load
Single Cluster
1 Cluster
+
2 Instances
1 Cluster
+
6 Instances
Clustering Continued

22. Services
Scripts/ToolsAPIs
Databases
Infrastructure
Network
ITSM Tool
Execute job per ticket request
Update ticket
Check if ticket exists
Create tickets
Automatic execution triggered by ticket
Pull data from ITSM CMDB

23. Enterprise
High
Availability
on

24. &
● Rundeck knows about
your environments
● Rundeck has ACL security
built-in for fine-grained
control
● Rundeck executes across
all those environments
simultaneously
● Jenkins can trigger
Rundeck jobs in
environments Jenkins
doesn’t have permissions