Speakers: Raphael Simon, Sr. Systems Architect, RightScale Ryan O’Leary, Product Manager, RightScale Led by our in-house top chefs, this breakout delves into how Chef configuration management integrates with RightScale and tactics for getting started.

1. april25-26
sanfrancisco
cloud success starts here
Chef Configuration Management
with RightScale
Raphael Simon, Sr. Systems Architect, RightScale
Ryan O’Leary, Product Manager, RightScale

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Elegant Software

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Chef @ RightScale History
• First integration ~ 3 years ago
• Chef only ServerTemplates 12H1 ~ 1 year ago
• Private and OS Chef support through Chef ServerTemplate ~ next week
• Going forward: tighter integration

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RightScale ServerTemplate Team
o 16 ServerTemplates
• Application servers, database managers, load balancers, all-in-ones
o ~75 RightScripts
• Thousands of line of bash code
• OS conditionals and cloud conditionals throughout
• Idempotency checking was laborious
o More Clouds, More OSs = Maintenance Nightmare!

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RightScale: Why Chef?
o Idempotency
• Files, packages, resources, etc – all built-in
• Easy to make your code idempotent (only_if, not_if)
o System resource abstractions and utilities
• No need for platform-specific checks or actions
• Resource notifications
o Built-in parsing and availability of system configuration info
o Strong open source community
• Many cookbooks are already available
• Help available when you need it

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Impact of Chef at RightScale
o RightScript-based ServerTemplate releases
• ~6 month release cycle
• 16 ServerTemplates
• ~50 total automated tests
o Chef-based ServerTemplate releases
• ~2 month release cycle
• 23 ServerTemplates
• ~2500 total automated tests
5X increase in bandwidth

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Running Chef in RightScale
o Single pane of glass for application management throughout
its lifecycle
o All of the other cloud management utilities that you need, built-
in

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Cloud Application Automation
o Monitor system resources across your deployment
o Configure alerts for notifications or to trigger actions
o Auto-scaling on any cloud
o Integrate with your systems using a single API
o Orchestrate across your servers/deployments using CloudFlow

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Deployment Organization
o Organize your servers and services into Deployments for better
visibility and automation
o Configure Deployment-level
settings, permissions, monitoring, and alerts

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User and Permissions Management
o Create user accounts with role-based permissions
• SSO available
o Managed SSH available on all instances
o Coming soon: IAM and granular permissions

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Cost Forecasting and Detailed Reporting
o Forecast costs based on historical data and estimated future
cloud service usage
o Run detailed, regular reports for auditing and chargeback
purposes
• Export reports into your accounting systems
• Report per cloud, per service
• Custom resource tagging and reporting

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RightScale + Chef or Chef + RightScale ?
o For RightScale users: RightScale Chef
 Built-in configuration engine
 Benefit from the Chef DSL
 Going forward: Make cookbooks first class abstraction in RightScale
o For Chef users: Chef integration
 Chef client ServerTemplate: easy on-ramp to RightScale
 Take advantage of governance, monitoring and some automation
 Going forward: RightScale connector to Chef

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Chef for RightScale Users
RightScale Chef

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RightScale Chef, Design – RepoPaths
o Define your Chef cookbook repositories
o Create RepoPaths to group and order them

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RightScale Chef, Design – ServerTemplates
o Attach RepoPaths to
ServerTemplates
o Define boot
sequence, operational recipes
and decommission sequence
using recipes from cookbooks in
the RepoPath
o Publish / import RightScale Chef
based ServerTemplates

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RightScale Chef, Runtime
o RightScale uploads and replicates cookbooks to repose
o RightLink downloads cookbooks to instance
o RightLink configures and runs Chef:
1. Merge RightScale inputs into Chef node
2. Add RightLink resources (tag, server collection, remote execution)
Git
SVN
URL
repose
Instance
Scraper
RightLink

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RightScale Chef, Future

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RightScale Chef, Future
o No RepoPath: Attach cookbooks directly to ServerTemplates instead
o Marketplace: Publish cookbooks to the MultiCloud Marketplace
o Runlists: Attach runlists (Chef roles) to ServerTemplates
o Knife: Upload and download cookbooks from RightScale using knife
o Cookbooks: View cookbook contents (including recipes) in RightScale

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RightScale Chef, Summary
Complete Integration with RightScale
o Design: leverage inputs, ServerTemplates, MultiCloud Marketplace
o Manage: automate, take advantage of tags, server collections and
remote execution of scripts
o Benefit: same technology used internally to build our ServerTemplates
“RightScale and Chef are better together”

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RightScale for Chef Users
Hosted and Open Source Chef in RightScale

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Chef Client ServerTemplate
o Available in the MultiCloud Marketplace next week
o Connect to existing Chef infrastructure
o Customize ServerTemplate to enable automation
o Use the RightScale knife plugin just released by Cary!
https://github.com/caryp/knife-rightscale
2. Cookbooks
Role ...
1. Chef Server config
3. Monitoring data
Hosted Chef / Chef
Server
InstanceRightScale
(Chef Client ServerTemplate)

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Future: Chef Server Connector
o Connect RightScale to existing Chef infrastructure
 Import cookbooks to RightScale
 Design ServerTemplate in RightScale
 Configure instance using existing Chef infrastructure
o Full Integration (leverage inputs, automation, etc.)
3. Cookbooks
Role ...
2. Chef Server config
4. Audit entries
Monitoring data
Hosted Chef / Chef
ServerInstanceRightScale
1. Cookbooks, roles, attributes …

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Hosted Chef and Chef Server Integration, Summary
o Available now (next week) using the Chef Client ServerTemplate
o Deeper integration in the works
o Take advantage of the RightScale platform without changing anything to
your existing configuration development process

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Summary
Make RightScale Yours

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Summary, Your Choice
• If you don’t need or don’t want to run Chef, use RightScale’s native
configuration engine. Use RightScripts and/or RightScale Chef.
• If you are already running Chef and want to take advantage of
RightScale’s automation, governance or reporting capabilities use the
Chef integration (Client ServerTemplate today, Chef connector in the
future)
“RightScale and Chef are better together”

26. april25-26
sanfrancisco
cloud success starts here
Questions?