inventory / configuration management tools

[Dan Langille]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Mathias Picker
<Mathias.Picker at virtual-earth.de> wrote:
> For configuration I'm using puppet and looking into controltier, I have
> not yet found a real use for inventory.

Our goal: buy a new box, rack it.  It starts up, boots, and configures itself.
We do nothing.

How does this happen?  We already have that new box in our configuration
managmenet system.  The boot server looks up the box in the inventory and
says, oh, you're going to be a web server, here's your details, and connect to
this load balancer please.  Two weeks later, we can reconfigure that box to be
an app server, reboot it, and as it boots up, it gets the new details and self
configures.

I call it an inventory system not because it is an inventory, but
because it's the
most appropriate name I can think of.  The objective: a list of
everything we have.
Every part of the system box life cycle goes through this system.  We buy: the
box gets added to the system. That prompts the configuration etc.
Then, when its
racked, it's power on and forget.  In theory... ;)

-- 
Dan Langille
myYearbook.com