The document discusses how to tame infrastructure that has become disorganized over time. It describes how infrastructure can become a "visible rat's nest" or "obfuscated rat's nest" with configuration drift, increasing complexity, outdated tools, and staffing issues. It recommends separating concerns, regularly maintaining skills through practice, moving away from static gold images, and using container partitioning and automation tools to bring order and flexibility. The key is to automate systems using tools for configuration, installation, and virtualization to prevent infrastructure from becoming unwieldy.

1. TAMING THE INFRASTRUCTURE
GONE WILD
Isaac Christoffersen
Contributing Partner - Open Source Solutions,
Colloquium
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

2. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
– CONFIGURATION DRIFT
– SYSTEMS ENTROPY
– STAFFING ATROPHY
– GOLD IMAGE
– SOFTWARE STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY

3. A NEW SERVER ROOM – COMPLETE WITH THAT “NEW CAR” SMELL
Room for
expansion
Cables all neatly
tied and out of
the way.

4. THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST

5. THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST

6. PROVISIONING INFRASTRUCTURE IS HARD.
Process Policy
I need 3 servers to use
for the development of a
Procurement Process Service Level Agreements
proof of concept. It's Order Fulfillment Process Budgets
going to be the next big Staff Recruitment & Hiring Staffing Guidance
thing!
Infrastructure
Tools People
Linux Administrators
Linux Commodity Servers
SAN Engineers
Xen SANs
Network Engineers
Hyperic & Drools Networking Equipment
Cobbler & Koan Power
Puppet HVAC Systems

7. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
– CONFIGURATION DRIFT
– SYSTEMS ENTROPY
– STAFFING ATROPHY
– GOLD IMAGE
– TEETERING STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY

8. SMELL :: CONFIGURATION DRIFT
• Any change outside a baseline
configuration is considered a
configuration drift.
• Could be an accidental or incidental or
intentional.
• Early identification will minimize
impact and reduce the risks around
business continuity.

9. PRESCRIPTION :: AUTOMATED CONFIGURATION

10. SMELL :: SYSTEMS ENTROPY
As a system is modified, its disorder, or entropy,
always increases.
• Similar to theories in software development, a
system that is used will be modified.
• When a system is modified, its complexity will
increase, provided that one is not actively working
to reduce complexity.

11. PRESCRIPTION :: SEPARATION OF CONCERNS
How can I build my web hosting business?
How can I manage my customer relationships? Data
How can I run my company's IT department? Center
How can I collaborate across the enterprise?
How can I view my corporate sales data? Software
How do I store & retrieve my inventory data?
How do I deploy my web services? Platform
How do I get the most of my IT and Infrastructure
personnel resources?

12. SMELL :: STAFFING ATROPHY
“Atrophy is the partial or complete
wasting away of a part of the body.
Causes include lack of exercise and/or
use”

13. PRESCRIPTION :: DRILL, BABY. DRILL.

14. SMELL :: GOLD IMAGE

15. PRESCRIPTION :: USE CONTINUOUS PROVISIONING
Consistent, repeatable builds encourage fast
deployment and consistently identical
systems without the burden of managing
images
A repeatable build improves product
quality, reduces the mundane tasks
and minimizes dependencies on key
people.
build
cycle
Software
packages

16. SMELL :: TEETERING STACK

17. PRESCRIPTION :: CONTAINER PARTITIONING
Virtualization can reduce cost while also improving flexibility…
Cluster multiple physical servers to gain failover capabilities
Share resources across physical servers
source: “Automated failover and recovery of virtualized guests
in Advanced Platform”, Rob Kenna, Redhat Magazine

18. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
– CONFIGURATION DRIFT
– SYSTEMS ENTROPY
– STAFFING ATROPHY
– GOLD IMAGE
– SOFTWARE STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY

19. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
Puppet
http://www.puppetlabs.com
Cfengine
http://www.cfengine.org/
Chef
http://www.opscode.com/
And many more…

20. OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
Cobbler
https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/
Spacewalk
http://spacewalk.redhat.com/
And many more…

21. VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
And many more…

22. OVERVIEW
– THE VISIBLE RAT’S NEST
– THE OBFUSCATED RAT’S NEST
INFRASTRUCTURE SMELLS
– CONFIGURATION DRIFT
– SYSTEMS ENTROPY
– STAFFING ATROPHY
– GOLD IMAGE
– SOFTWARE STACKS
KEY TOOLS
– SYSTEM CONFIGURATION TOOLS
– OS INSTALLATION TOOLS
– VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS
SUMMARY

23. • SEPARATE CONCERNS.
• DRILL, BABY. DRILL.
• ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD.
• PARTITION CONTAINERS.
• AUTOMATE. AUTOMATE. AUTOMATE.

25. Isaac Christoffersen
Colloquium
Contributing Partner, Open Source Solutions
email: isaac.christoffersen@colloquium.co
twitter: @colloquiumco
web: http://www.colloquium.co
twitter: @colloquiumco
identica: @colloquiumco