We used Chef, the automation tool, as an Infrastructure as Code tool for configuration deployment, such as deploying patches on numerous servers, first on the development box, then on QA, and then on production. That was the main use case for us in the initial stage of using Chef. We then started using Chef for configuration changes. We deployed all those things on the workstation, pushed the recipes from the workstation to the Chef server, and the Chef client pulled from the Chef server, so that is how all the configurations got matched. Before using Chef, we patched our servers manually or with shell scripts. Suppose we had 100 servers in our development area and needed to patch them all in a day or a week. We would run those shell scripts and wait for their outputs while going on each server to find out what patches had already been applied and if the server had been rebooted. That was a very long-running task for us. With the help of Chef, we configured all those nodes as Chef clients and matched or configured all those nodes by subscribing them to the Chef server. We changed the configuration file with the help of a recipe and pushed those recipes from the workstation to the Chef server. Chef clients started comparing their configuration files from their client to the server. That is how they started to patch themselves and make changes to their configuration files. This was the main use case for us when we started to use this automation tool. After that, suppose we had 10 servers currently and 10 new servers. We had an application to deploy and the application team requested 10 servers with those many tools, users, configurations, and server hardlink compliance. We simply wrote those recipes in the workstation and pushed those recipes to the Chef server. Chef Client and Ohai were already installed on all 10 servers, and they simply compared their configuration files from Chef client to Chef server. As soon as there was a difference in the configuration, the Chef client pulled all those configurations and automatically deployed all those configurations on those nodes. That is how easy it was for us to deliver the servers or the configurations in a faster manner with the help of Chef. For SAP servers, we needed to make many changes in files such as sysctl.conf on the Linux server. Suppose we had a brand new server delivered to us from a cloud platform, and we needed to make all those changes so that it could have all the security-related features or changes on the server. Instead of manually doing those changes on all those SAP servers, we could simply write a Chef recipe once and it would be applied on all those SAP servers. That is how it benefited us. When I used Chef in my previous organization five years ago, it was on-prem servers. We had not used any other solution before using Chef. We were using all those tasks with shell scripts only. After using Chef, we found other configuration management tools, such as Ansible and Terraform, which we found better, and then we switched from Chef to Ansible.
My main use case for Chef is configuration management to set up systems, provision software, and keep configurations up to date. I create Chef recipes for setup and install needed software from a clean Linux installation to set up server roles, which is a specific example of how I use Chef to manage and provision software while keeping configurations up to date.
Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Dec 13, 2025
My main use case for Chef is configuration and deployments. We receive blank servers and use Chef to build predefined application or appliance servers. A quick specific example of how I use Chef to build a predefined application or appliance server is that we use Chef to build Postgres database servers in containers. We receive a blank Red Hat VM and then deploy Docker CE, Docker Compose, and the Red Hat environment. Additionally, we deploy Postgres images and the Prometheus Postgres exporter and configure it with all of the client's requirements, including their pre-shared secrets and pre-agreed IP addresses. We use encrypted data bags for pre-shared secrets.
I use Chef day-to-day to manage infrastructure, create version control, and automate deployment for applications that are ready for deployment and that my team and other teams work on. I work to manage this capability and deploy as fast as possible in a scalable and automated manner, working with people across the organization to achieve a common infrastructure, scalability, and security upgrades for that infrastructure. The specific task that I worked with for Chef involves managing up to 70 servers across the organization to deploy applications that my team or other teams develop. This has given me experience deploying applications, understanding the infrastructure as it works, automating processes thoroughly, and monitoring as the application scales up and down. Chef has given us an easy time doing all that automation, security, and monitoring by automating the processes across all those servers so that we don't do manual work, going one place at a time to install updates. If a server goes down across availability zones, we don't have to go and do it manually or troubleshoot along. We automate most of the tasks that we need to do using Chef.
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Feb 14, 2023
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.
Senior Customer Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Nov 17, 2023
Chef is a configuration management tool, and I work for the product team of Chef. All the DevOps teams mainly use Chef for configuration management of their servers or infrastructure.
DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Sep 18, 2023
Chef is like a master chef in a kitchen for computer systems. It's used to create recipes (cookbooks) that specify how servers and apps should be set up. Chef then makes sure these instructions are followed the same way on all computers in a network. The ChefServer is like the recipe book, where all these instructions are kept and shared, making it easier to manage and control how software and systems work in a company.
Presales Consultant Solution Architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Real User
Apr 5, 2022
Chef is mostly for the operating systems to deploy or style, e.g. not containers. Before the containers, you need hardware, then an operating system, then you start to work on Kubernetes. To automate those steps, we use Chef. The tool is useful for provisioning the operating system, because as you talk about the ops, sometimes customers ask to further deploy everything through automation, e.g. starting from scratch. You need to use different tools for you to provision via automation, so you need Chef. We use an automation tool such as Chef, then we were able to run Docker or containers on top of the hardware and operating system.
Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
MSP
Dec 11, 2018
We use it for deployment of applications. It is a tool that you can use on the back-end for deploying architectures. I have used the product for a couple years. I used to work for an online data center, and we used Chef for a lot of the tools and appointments.
Our primary use case of this solution is for the orchestration of the service deployment, and integrations. Earlier, we had it on-prem but now it's totally on AWS cloud. AWS cloud is easier to use, and changing and refitting the architecture solutions is very easy.
Our primary use case is having the properties set up across the servers. We have Chef recipes deployed and configured across our servers, so we get the same type of replication across our servers and environments. We are using the on-premise version. We have our applications already set up for on-premise. We are using Chef and preparing it for CI/CD and other properties. Now, we are planning ahead and will use the AWS service too.
We use it for provisioning and ongoing configuration management. We provision boxes with Chef by taking a base AMI that already has Chef installed, and already has the appropriate credentials to connect to the main server. Then, this will be able to roll out and deploy the configuration. In addition, it runs every five minutes, so any unexpected changes to the configuration get automatically reverted. This means, you get developers, who go into the box and change something, thinking it will be okay. Then, they come to you, asking "Why isn't this change that I'm making working?" We have to explain, "Because it shouldn't be going into the box in the first place."
My primary use case for Chef has been always for infrastructure provisioning. For example, infrastructure as a cloud, provisioning it in a multi-cloud environment. That's predominantly what we're using Chef for.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
MSP
Jul 1, 2018
I used Chef for server provisioning in AWS using the knife-aws plugin. I also used Chef as a configuration management tool. It did all the setup and configuration for all the software packages for multiple servers. To make any updates to the server setups, all we did was update the recipes on the Chef Server.
Chef is a powerful automation tool designed for efficient infrastructure management across varied environments. With its environment-as-code model, Chef provides predictability and reliability in deployments, enhancing security compliance and reducing manual intervention.Chef focuses on automating deployments and configurations, ensuring server consistency, managing scalable environments, and orchestrating service deployments. Its versatile recipe-writing and Ruby-based flexibility cater to...
We used Chef, the automation tool, as an Infrastructure as Code tool for configuration deployment, such as deploying patches on numerous servers, first on the development box, then on QA, and then on production. That was the main use case for us in the initial stage of using Chef. We then started using Chef for configuration changes. We deployed all those things on the workstation, pushed the recipes from the workstation to the Chef server, and the Chef client pulled from the Chef server, so that is how all the configurations got matched. Before using Chef, we patched our servers manually or with shell scripts. Suppose we had 100 servers in our development area and needed to patch them all in a day or a week. We would run those shell scripts and wait for their outputs while going on each server to find out what patches had already been applied and if the server had been rebooted. That was a very long-running task for us. With the help of Chef, we configured all those nodes as Chef clients and matched or configured all those nodes by subscribing them to the Chef server. We changed the configuration file with the help of a recipe and pushed those recipes from the workstation to the Chef server. Chef clients started comparing their configuration files from their client to the server. That is how they started to patch themselves and make changes to their configuration files. This was the main use case for us when we started to use this automation tool. After that, suppose we had 10 servers currently and 10 new servers. We had an application to deploy and the application team requested 10 servers with those many tools, users, configurations, and server hardlink compliance. We simply wrote those recipes in the workstation and pushed those recipes to the Chef server. Chef Client and Ohai were already installed on all 10 servers, and they simply compared their configuration files from Chef client to Chef server. As soon as there was a difference in the configuration, the Chef client pulled all those configurations and automatically deployed all those configurations on those nodes. That is how easy it was for us to deliver the servers or the configurations in a faster manner with the help of Chef. For SAP servers, we needed to make many changes in files such as sysctl.conf on the Linux server. Suppose we had a brand new server delivered to us from a cloud platform, and we needed to make all those changes so that it could have all the security-related features or changes on the server. Instead of manually doing those changes on all those SAP servers, we could simply write a Chef recipe once and it would be applied on all those SAP servers. That is how it benefited us. When I used Chef in my previous organization five years ago, it was on-prem servers. We had not used any other solution before using Chef. We were using all those tasks with shell scripts only. After using Chef, we found other configuration management tools, such as Ansible and Terraform, which we found better, and then we switched from Chef to Ansible.
My main use case for Chef is configuration management to set up systems, provision software, and keep configurations up to date. I create Chef recipes for setup and install needed software from a clean Linux installation to set up server roles, which is a specific example of how I use Chef to manage and provision software while keeping configurations up to date.
My main use case for Chef is configuration and deployments. We receive blank servers and use Chef to build predefined application or appliance servers. A quick specific example of how I use Chef to build a predefined application or appliance server is that we use Chef to build Postgres database servers in containers. We receive a blank Red Hat VM and then deploy Docker CE, Docker Compose, and the Red Hat environment. Additionally, we deploy Postgres images and the Prometheus Postgres exporter and configure it with all of the client's requirements, including their pre-shared secrets and pre-agreed IP addresses. We use encrypted data bags for pre-shared secrets.
I use Chef day-to-day to manage infrastructure, create version control, and automate deployment for applications that are ready for deployment and that my team and other teams work on. I work to manage this capability and deploy as fast as possible in a scalable and automated manner, working with people across the organization to achieve a common infrastructure, scalability, and security upgrades for that infrastructure. The specific task that I worked with for Chef involves managing up to 70 servers across the organization to deploy applications that my team or other teams develop. This has given me experience deploying applications, understanding the infrastructure as it works, automating processes thoroughly, and monitoring as the application scales up and down. Chef has given us an easy time doing all that automation, security, and monitoring by automating the processes across all those servers so that we don't do manual work, going one place at a time to install updates. If a server goes down across availability zones, we don't have to go and do it manually or troubleshoot along. We automate most of the tasks that we need to do using Chef.
I used the solution to transform my infrastructure into code.
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.
Chef is a configuration management tool, and I work for the product team of Chef. All the DevOps teams mainly use Chef for configuration management of their servers or infrastructure.
We were using the tool for managing Kubernetes.
Chef is like a master chef in a kitchen for computer systems. It's used to create recipes (cookbooks) that specify how servers and apps should be set up. Chef then makes sure these instructions are followed the same way on all computers in a network. The ChefServer is like the recipe book, where all these instructions are kept and shared, making it easier to manage and control how software and systems work in a company.
Chef is mostly for the operating systems to deploy or style, e.g. not containers. Before the containers, you need hardware, then an operating system, then you start to work on Kubernetes. To automate those steps, we use Chef. The tool is useful for provisioning the operating system, because as you talk about the ops, sometimes customers ask to further deploy everything through automation, e.g. starting from scratch. You need to use different tools for you to provision via automation, so you need Chef. We use an automation tool such as Chef, then we were able to run Docker or containers on top of the hardware and operating system.
We use it for deployment of applications. It is a tool that you can use on the back-end for deploying architectures. I have used the product for a couple years. I used to work for an online data center, and we used Chef for a lot of the tools and appointments.
We use it for provisioning Adobe Experience Manager web application environments.
We use it for integration management.
It's for deployment and configuration automation.
We use it for training.
* For software management * Competitive deployment * Upgrade
Our primary use case of this solution is for the orchestration of the service deployment, and integrations. Earlier, we had it on-prem but now it's totally on AWS cloud. AWS cloud is easier to use, and changing and refitting the architecture solutions is very easy.
I have used in my current company for three years, and with other clients for more than ten years.
It is for orchestrating our servers and deployments to do integrations.
Our primary use case is having the properties set up across the servers. We have Chef recipes deployed and configured across our servers, so we get the same type of replication across our servers and environments. We are using the on-premise version. We have our applications already set up for on-premise. We are using Chef and preparing it for CI/CD and other properties. Now, we are planning ahead and will use the AWS service too.
We use it for provisioning and ongoing configuration management. We provision boxes with Chef by taking a base AMI that already has Chef installed, and already has the appropriate credentials to connect to the main server. Then, this will be able to roll out and deploy the configuration. In addition, it runs every five minutes, so any unexpected changes to the configuration get automatically reverted. This means, you get developers, who go into the box and change something, thinking it will be okay. Then, they come to you, asking "Why isn't this change that I'm making working?" We have to explain, "Because it shouldn't be going into the box in the first place."
My primary use case for Chef has been always for infrastructure provisioning. For example, infrastructure as a cloud, provisioning it in a multi-cloud environment. That's predominantly what we're using Chef for.
I used Chef for server provisioning in AWS using the knife-aws plugin. I also used Chef as a configuration management tool. It did all the setup and configuration for all the software packages for multiple servers. To make any updates to the server setups, all we did was update the recipes on the Chef Server.