Share your experience using Puppet Pipelines

Chef is primarily used for configuration management. For example, if you are managing a large number of servers (thousands or more), it is essential to ensure that the configurations across all servers are consistent. Otherwise, making any changes to the configurations would require writing a script to apply those changes across all the servers. Additionally, end-users may change configurations on multiple servers, leading to inconsistencies across different servers. To avoid this, configuration management is required.

We use Chef for this purpose by using a server-client mechanism. We apply changes to the Chef server, and every 30 to 40 minutes (depending on the configuration), Chef will verify whether the server has the required configuration. If not, it will revert to the required configuration automatically.

The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful.

I have been using Chef for approximately four years.

The solution is stable.

Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed.

The solution is good to manage multiple large infrastructures.

We can have 10 to 10,000 users using this solution and it manages them well.

I have not contacted technical support.

The initial setup of Chef is simple. The time it takes for the setup depends on what is included in the environment. However, it typically can be done in one day.

Learning to write cookbooks to manage infrastructure with Chef does have a learning curve, but it is steady and manageable. However, if you're looking for an alternative with an easier learning curve, I would suggest evaluating other options such as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, and comparing them to Chef. Some alternatives have a much simpler learning curve than Chef.

I rate Chef a seven out of ten.

The solution is used to run things on servers.

The product enables users to upload applications in S3 buckets. The product is easy to use. I haven’t had any issues with the product.

I faced some stability issues. However, I could sort out the issues I faced.

I have been using the solution for three months.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability six to seven out of ten.

The support team helps sort out issues. The support people give proper responses. I rate the support seven to eight out of ten.

Neutral

The deployment is easy. I used the solution while I was creating an EC2 instance. We had to create an S3 bucket and upload text files. Then, we deployed the application. We can update and redeploy the tool if we need any corrections.

The product is free with EC2. There are no additional charges for AWS CodeDeploy.

We have done many projects using CodeDeploy and CodePipeline. We deploy code in GitHub by generating and downloading an SSH Key to store the repositories in SSH and deploy the code from the repository. Finally, the repositories are successfully cloned. I only know basic concepts of AWS products. Overall, I rate the solution six to seven out of ten.