Provisioning, deploying and maintaining environments, applications, and infrastructures have traditionally been done by hand. These tools are intended to allow you to have a machine do most of this work. Configuration Kit offers the following as the ten best tools for every business.
The CFEngine
Open source and established, this provide automation to configuration and runs on C which gives it a smaller footprint and runs faster with fewer dependencies.
Puppet
Using Ruby C and being primarily model-driven, it has been described as built with sysadmins in mind.
Easier to learn than C, Puppet reduces training time and costs and, once installed, every node in the infrastructure will have an agent.
Chef
Next to Puppet, Chef is the other heavyweight in the CM and automation market. Managing cloud servers on premises is the main advantage of this Ruby C platform. Being cloud-agnostic, you can manage data centres and the cloud from one workstation.
Ansible
A configuration management, deployment orchestration open-source tool with an automation engine. It also helps with IT infrastructure automation using Python code. Ansible is rapidly winning market share and is one of our favourite tools.
SaltStack
The leader in infrastructure as code, SaltStack has a sizable following. This Python developed language was built in response to the Puppet/Chef hegemony restricting users to Ruby C.
Docker
Established in 2013, this relative newbie has taken the DevOps software development world by storm. The key to their success is lightweight, containerized technology. With all the necessary parts in the container, this tool can be used on any Linux server regardless of configurations or settings.
PowerShell DSC
This is Microsoft’s solution for configuration management. An open-source technology management platform designed for all resources to declaratively specify how you want your environment configured.
TeamCity Configuration Tool
If your need is a Java Programming Language server, then this management and continuous integration tool developed by JetBrains is a solid option.
JUJU Configuration Tool
Intended to decrease the operational overhead of new generation software. This open-source tool has features like quick deployment, scaling integration and configuring, but JUJU provides no clear instructions on using an open stack cloud provider.
Rudder
Rudder works on top of the CFEngine and provides a unique asset management function capable of identifying nodes as well as characteristics. This is useful in the performance of configuration management activities.
There are many more tools you can use to effectively go about your business’ configuration management necessities. Whichever tool or tools you use, this listing from Configuration Kit will enable and empower you to step into the automated configuration management that is leading the way.