The document summarizes the changes that have occurred in system administration over time. It discusses how software delivery has shifted from CDs/DVDs to online and continuous delivery. Infrastructure deployment has evolved from manual installations to tools enabling reproducible deployments. Virtualization became common in the 2000s. Infrastructure as code principles including treating infrastructure configuration as code, versioning, and testing best practices are discussed. Monitoring has shifted from tools like BigBrother to Nagios and newer solutions. Emerging technologies like Docker, Packer, orchestration tools, and metrics/monitoring are also summarized.

1. The future of System
Administration
Kris Buytaert
Apache CloudStack Collaboration Summit
Amsterdam 2013
@krisbuytaert

2. Kris Buytaert
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I used to be a Dev,
Then Became an Op
Chief Trolling Officer and Open Source
Consultant @inuits.eu
Everything is an effing DNS Problem
Building Clouds since before the bookstore
Some books, some papers, some blogs
Evangelizing devops

3. Why Me ?

4. Why Me ?

5. The future is here,
it's just not evenly distributed
yet

6. Why we study history ?
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Because I`m a grumpy old frustrated sysadmin
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Because I`m an old opiniated guy
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Because history repeats
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We need to learn from our mistakes

7. What has changed
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Software was
delivered on CD's,
then DVD's,
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Then online ,
periodically
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Then internally , more
frequently
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Continuously

8. Deploying an Infrastructure
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1996 : Manual Installations
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2001 : Mondo rescue
= Reproducable single instances

9. Deploying an Infrastructure
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1996 : Manual Installations
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2001 : Mondo rescue
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2003 : SystemImager
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Reproducable Infrastructure , with
“OVERRIDES”
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Fast Multicast Image deployments
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Image Sprawl (thank you VMware)

10. Deploying an Infrastructure
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1996 : Manual Installations
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2001 : Mondo rescue
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2003 : SystemImager
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2005 : Dreaming of Jeos + IAC (Cfengine)
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Kickstart / FAI

11. Deploying an Infrastructure
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1996 : Manual Installations
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2001 : Mondo rescue
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2003 : SystemImager
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2005 : Dreaming of Jeos + IAC (CFengine)
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2008 : Actual JeOS + IAC
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2010 : Vagrant for development

12. What has changed
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End users
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1 user using their own PC,
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500 users using the intranet application
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500000 users the cloud / saas
(.eu)

13. Physical to Virtual
WARNING : Adoption vs Introduction
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Up till 2000 , Virtualization was a desktop
thing, running emulation on your desktop (Plex,
Bochs
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Early 2000's Paravirtualization , Xen starts and
gains adoption
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August 2006 : Amazon announced EC2
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2009 : US started adopting EC2, Europe never
really did
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2012 – now : Private clouds

14. Virtualization should be Cheap
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1 host with way too much services
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No isolation, dependency hell , management
hell
1 host multiple vm's , same CAPEX
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VM's are cheap !
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Public clouds => multiple vm's , growing OPEX
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Private clouds => multiple vm's same CAPEX

15. What has changed
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End users working 9-5
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Local users using your application during
daytime
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A global economy, no downtime an be
tolerated

16. High Availability & Scaleout
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KISS
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Clustered Storage is finally in it's 10's
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Most apps still don't get it
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Stateless vs Statefull

17. For years we've tolerated humans to to make
structural manual changes to the infrastructure
our critical applications are running on.
Whilst at the same time demanding those critical
applications to go trough rigid test scenarios.
Who let this happen ?

18. Infrastructure as Code
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Treat configuration automation as code
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Development best practices
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Model your infrastructure
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Version your cookbooks / manifests
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Test your cookbooks/ manifests
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Dev/ test /uat / prod for your infra
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Model your infrastructure
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A working service = automated ( Application Code +
Infrastructure Code + Security + Monitoring )
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Think Puppet, Chef, Cfengine, ....

19. Testdriven Infrastructure

20. Jenkins Pipeline

21. A pipeline
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Checkout code
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Upload to Repo
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Syntax
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Deploy on Test
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Style
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Check Puppetruns
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Code Coverage
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Check Icinga
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Tests
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Promote to UAT
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Build
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More Tests
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Package

22. Repository Management

23. Continuous Delivery or Deployment
of Infrastructure

24. Orchestration
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Distributed ssh++
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Trigger actions on selected nodes
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Think : Mcollective, Ansible, Salt, Rundeck
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(& Discuss :))

25. nd
Orchestration 2
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While ....
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First install X
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When it is ready configure Y
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Then notify Z
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Think : Noah , Zookeeper, Serf , Juju
gen

26. Juju

27. Serf
Serf is a decentralized solution for service
discovery and orchestration that is lightweight,
highly available, and fault tolerant.
Gossip based, Detecting Failure, etc.
By HashiCorp

28. Deploying an Infrastructure
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1996 : Manual Installations
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2001 : Mondo rescue
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2003 : SystemImager
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2005 : Dreaming of Jeos + IAC (CFengine)
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2008 : Actual JeOS + IAC
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2010 : Vagrant
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2014: Stateless , Immutable infrastructure ?

29. Are Docker, Packer , next ?
Stateless
Immutable

30. #monitoringsucks -> #monitoringlove
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1996 : BigBrother
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2001: Netsaint => Nagios + OpenNMS
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2009: Shootout => Nagios (& Forks) clear
winner
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2011: @lusis #monitoringsucks
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2012: @ulfmansson #monitoringlove

32. I love CheckMK
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Autodetection
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Multiplexing
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Trend Forecasting

33. I hate CheckMK
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Autodetection ?
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Functionalities
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Service,
eg. vhosts etc
Single Source of Truth

34. Monitoring & Metrics
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Oculus , Skyline, Riemann, Esper,
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FlapJack (2nd incarnation)
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BPM & Monitoring
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Creating Information out of this data
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Big data
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Machine Learning

35. I`m scared of the future !
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Juniors
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Lack of Passion
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Broken education

36. Our role tomorrow:
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Teacher (for both collegues and suppliers)
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Student
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Math Expert
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Developer
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Troubleshooter
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Evangelist
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Shrink
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Gap Bridger

37. Work to be done..
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#releasemanagement
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#Backupsucks
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#printingsucks

38. Every 18 months, automate yourselve out of your
job
Someone at Google, longtime ago

39. CfgMgmtCamp.eu
Gent
3 & 4 February 2014
Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Cfengine, Rudder,
Juju,Saltstack, Foreman & You ?

40. Contact
Kris Buytaert
Kris.Buytaert@inuits.be
Further Reading
@krisbuytaert
http://www.krisbuytaert.be/b
log/
http://www.inuits.be/
Inuits
Duboistraat 50
2060 Antwerpen
Belgium
891.514.231
+32 475 961221