[Cialug] LAMP/installers/distros

[Erik Anderson]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Daniel A. Ramaley
<daniel.ramaley at drake.edu> wrote:
> How does it compare to Puppet? I've never used a configuration
> management system before, but (at least in job requirements) Puppet
> seems more popular.

Ansible is agent-less, meaning that the only requirement for managed
systems is an sshd and a python interpreter. Puppet, chef, et. al.
require you to maintain a server/client architecture, and an agent
gets installed on each managed system. This works fine, and provided
benefit in some circumstances, but is problematic or un-necessary in
others. In my case, I wanted something that was very lightweight,
simple to understand, and well-maintained. Ansible has scratched that
itch very well.

Historically, I had about a year's worth of configs in Puppet, but
always felt like I was having to fight it to get it to do what I
wanted. I discovered Ansible, fell in love, and had all of our puppet
infrastructure converted over to Ansible within a couple of weeks.

So yes, puppet and chef are indeed more popular, but perhaps only
because they've been around longer and they were a *lot* better than
their predecessors (CFengine). For an org that doesn't currently have
a CM system in place, I'd highly recommend taking a serious look at
Ansible.

-Erik