Zach, (Sorry in advance if this is a re-post and for not replying to the original message. I replied, deleted and it never went through. On top of that, the link to this message on Google Groups goes to another!)
Anyway... my original reply: Chris Moates did an interesting presentation on Puppet during CPOSC a few months back. I was actually looking at his slides for a refresher the other day. You might find something useful in there as far as reasons to use Puppet. He lists quite a few and why its beneficial. You can grab a PDF of his presentation here: http://wiki.cposc.org/_media/2008:cposc2008-moates-scalableadmin.pdf Hope this helps! -- Ryan Duff web: http://www.ryanduff.net aim: ryancduff twitter: ryancduff Paul Lathrop wrote: > Zach, > > Some thoughts inline: > > On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Zach Buckholz > <zach.buckh...@apollogrp.edu> wrote: >> This may sound like a confusing / trick question, so please bare with me. >> >> What problem(s) will puppet solve? Why would I use it? > > What problems do you want to solve? > > Seriously, if you don't have a solid answer to this question in your > head, I bet you will have trouble making Puppet work for you. What > frustrates you about doing things the old "ssh + loop over hosts" > ad-hoc shell scripting way? What fires do you spend most of your time > putting out? What things do you find yourself doing over and over and > over again? Answer these questions and you'll be a good way towards > pitching your proposal. > >> This is what I have come up with so far; (I wish the reductive labs site had >> a wiki page for this) > > Add one! That's what wikis are all about! > >> What is the problem? >> Unknown configurations >> Environment is not dynamic >> Messy >> No central model >> Hard to change >> No consistency >> Administration overhead >> Reactive instead of proactive >> Unorganized >> Need scripts to work with linux and solaris >> Hard to scale >> >> Can anyone add (non-technical explanations) to the above list? > > I think you've covered enough ground here to make a solid argument, as > long as you remember to tie it all back to costs. Like this: > > Unknown configurations: Whenever a machine has a problem, I spend XX% > of my time re-learning how that machine is set up before I can even > consider what is causing the problem. If the configuration were > consistent and self-documenting, it would free up XX hours of my time > ($XX amount of money) to apply towards more important/revenue-driving > tasks. > > That sort of thing gets managerial types fired up. Give them a dream > of an Operations team that is involved in producing revenue rather > than being a cost sink. > > My .02 > > --Paul > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
