A lot of people new to automation are very nervous about letting a script or program like Chef change a production system. That fear can really slow the advance of a DevOps movement. But ignoring those people's fears is not the answer. So here are some tips and tricks to get everyone, including yourself, to be more confident about writing world changing scripts.
Whenever possible create virtual environments. The use of virtual machines or cloud servers gives you considerably more options and abilities than bare metal hardware. Simply the ability to snapshot a server and revert back to it in minutes is a game changing concept. It let's you run any automation from beginning to end virtually without fear. I say virtually only because you occasionally run scripts that affect systems that cannot easily be virtualized. This is now more the exception than the rule. If you take a snapshot of the server, run the automation, find a mistake/error/bug you simply revert the server back to the starting point, fix the problem and try again. The only thing you have lost is the time it takes to run the script. This might be a lot of time but still less than having to rebuild the environment between each test run. If you have the luxury of multiple environments to use you can and should follow the same procedure used in the development of the script for future deployments. So you just take the script that worked in Dev and run it in Test after taking a snapshot there. Then rinse and repeat what you did all the way to production.
Test it over and over and over again. It sounds crazy but I now run the completely new scripts I am ready to bless for migration to the next environment multiple times in each environment. This gives me the confidence that they really are working. I want to know I didn't do something weird that made the script work when I fixed the bug. Once the script runs cleanly multiple times I am all ready to go and I move it to the next tier.
Ask someone to do a peer review of the script. This is just a good practice in general. When possible I suggest walking the person through the script and letting them ask questions the first time through. This has often turned up bugs and other issues all on it's own. Having to explain something uses a different part of your brain and opens your mind up to see the problems or possible problems.
Ask someone else to run the scripts for you. I normally do this in a Dev/Test environment. I do this for two reasons 1) Validate my documentation 2) validate the procedure I am doing. Often my teammates have asked questions that point out things I forgot to account for or code in. They also tend to be less stressed than if they are deploying to a production environment. Doing this earlier is better. Repeating it when you have to make a change makes you a better programer/scripter. Your teammate finding that one thing that would have driven you nuts during a deploy is, in a word, priceless.
Communicate what it is you are trying to automate. Be as specific as possible in the communications. Making everyone involved aware of what it is you are doing goes a long way towards building their trust. It is the most basic way to be inclusive in your process. Do your best not to make it sound like you are asking for permission to do the automation. You are doing this to make the environment better and no one should ever question that. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be open to feedback. You should actually be ready for it because it will happen. While everyone in any given IT organization may not be expert communicators you need to take all feedback without feeling persecuted. Remember this is just as scary for them as it is for you at the beginning. So they may need time to adjust and gain confidence also. The worst thing you can do is start or continue a flame war about your automation process. Respond respectfully and with clarifications about thing
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A lot of people new to automation are very nervous about letting a script or program like Chef change a production system. That fear can really slow the advance of a DevOps movement. But ignoring those people's fears is not the answer. So here are some tips and tricks to get everyone, including yourself, to be more confident about writing world changing scripts.
Whenever possible create virtual environments. The use of virtual machines or cloud servers gives you considerably more options and abilities than bare metal hardware. Simply the ability to snapshot a server and revert back to it in minutes is a game changing concept. It let's you run any automation from beginning to end virtually without fear. I say virtually only because you occasionally run scripts that affect systems that cannot easily be virtualized. This is now more the exception than the rule. If you take a snapshot of the server, run the automation, find a mistake/error/bug you simply revert the server back to the starting point, fix the problem and try again. The only thing you have lost is the time it takes to run the script. This might be a lot of time but still less than having to rebuild the environment between each test run. If you have the luxury of multiple environments to use you can and should follow the same procedure used in the development of the script for future deployments. So you just take the script that worked in Dev and run it in Test after taking a snapshot there. Then rinse and repeat what you did all the way to production.
Test it over and over and over again. It sounds crazy but I now run the completely new scripts I am ready to bless for migration to the next environment multiple times in each environment. This gives me the confidence that they really are working. I want to know I didn't do something weird that made the script work when I fixed the bug. Once the script runs cleanly multiple times I am all ready to go and I move it to the next tier.
Ask someone to do a peer review of the script. This is just a good practice in general. When possible I suggest walking the person through the script and letting them ask questions the first time through. This has often turned up bugs and other issues all on it's own. Having to explain something uses a different part of your brain and opens your mind up to see the problems or possible problems.
Ask someone else to run the scripts for you. I normally do this in a Dev/Test environment. I do this for two reasons 1) Validate my documentation 2) validate the procedure I am doing. Often my teammates have asked questions that point out things I forgot to account for or code in. They also tend to be less stressed than if they are deploying to a production environment. Doing this earlier is better. Repeating it when you have to make a change makes you a better programer/scripter. Your teammate finding that one thing that would have driven you nuts during a deploy is, in a word, priceless.
Communicate what it is you are trying to automate. Be as specific as possible in the communications. Making everyone involved aware of what it is you are doing goes a long way towards building their trust. It is the most basic way to be inclusive in your process. Do your best not to make it sound like you are asking for permission to do the automation. You are doing this to make the environment better and no one should ever question that. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be open to feedback. You should actually be ready for it because it will happen. While everyone in any given IT organization may not be expert communicators you need to take all feedback without feeling persecuted. Remember this is just as scary for them as it is for you at the beginning. So they may need time to adjust and gain confidence also. The worst thing you can do is start or continue a flame war about your automation process. Respond respectfully and with clarifications about thing
Episode 20 - Devopsmastery.com - Don't be a tool about tools...
Devops Mastery
17 minutes 28 seconds
11 years ago
Episode 20 - Devopsmastery.com - Don't be a tool about tools...
Everyone loves a new toy. New tools help us do our jobs better, faster and more accurately. Which is great when you understand exactly what you want the tool to do for you. How often does that really happen though?
As an Enterprise Architect I am asked on a regular basis to help companies deploy tools. The problem I run into the most is they don't completely understand what the tools can do for them. They know it will fix one problem but may not realize that it could be fixing others. Then there is the situation where the competing tool could have solved even more problems and easier. So why don't my large enterprise clients go through a process that prevents this? Every company is different, but sometimes it's a time factor. Other times it's not understanding the problem they need to solve. Each company is unique on what their specific issue is. Usually the core issue is that the selection process didn't have enough parameters or ignored parameters altogether.
In a lot of situations and evaluations it's a problem of not communicating with other members of the evaluation team or with other teams. When people love a tool and have their heart set on using it, very often it's hard to get them to hear criticism about it. To avoid those situations they exclude people or groups that may have a different opinion or a different tool they are passionate about. People may also be trying to avoid paralysis through analysis. No matter what the reason the result will be the same. You will end up with a tool that you either never use all of the features or doesn't have enough features. This will require you to get a second tool when an alternative tool that covers both problems exists.
The best way I have found to avoid this is too do selections in three phases. The first is to solicit the wish list of features from both the tools target users and the operations teams supporting it. Also ask them for suggestions of tools they like or hates using in the past. The second is to research the tools then start looking for feature lists. Evaluate each against the wishlist and not each other. Try to narrow the set down to two or three at most. The final step is to do a Proof of Concept with your top choices. In the Proof of Concept Phase Install them, set it up in a development environment, and actually make it do something. Ask the Users and support teams if each tool is doing what you think you need it to. Once you have things working then demo each environment. This will show how well, if at all, they are answering the items on the wish list for a small subset of the tools users and operations staff.
If the Demo's go well then your choice should be clear. You will have done what you can to make people happy. Just don't expect everyone to love the choice. you can never make everyone happy.
Devops Mastery
A lot of people new to automation are very nervous about letting a script or program like Chef change a production system. That fear can really slow the advance of a DevOps movement. But ignoring those people's fears is not the answer. So here are some tips and tricks to get everyone, including yourself, to be more confident about writing world changing scripts.
Whenever possible create virtual environments. The use of virtual machines or cloud servers gives you considerably more options and abilities than bare metal hardware. Simply the ability to snapshot a server and revert back to it in minutes is a game changing concept. It let's you run any automation from beginning to end virtually without fear. I say virtually only because you occasionally run scripts that affect systems that cannot easily be virtualized. This is now more the exception than the rule. If you take a snapshot of the server, run the automation, find a mistake/error/bug you simply revert the server back to the starting point, fix the problem and try again. The only thing you have lost is the time it takes to run the script. This might be a lot of time but still less than having to rebuild the environment between each test run. If you have the luxury of multiple environments to use you can and should follow the same procedure used in the development of the script for future deployments. So you just take the script that worked in Dev and run it in Test after taking a snapshot there. Then rinse and repeat what you did all the way to production.
Test it over and over and over again. It sounds crazy but I now run the completely new scripts I am ready to bless for migration to the next environment multiple times in each environment. This gives me the confidence that they really are working. I want to know I didn't do something weird that made the script work when I fixed the bug. Once the script runs cleanly multiple times I am all ready to go and I move it to the next tier.
Ask someone to do a peer review of the script. This is just a good practice in general. When possible I suggest walking the person through the script and letting them ask questions the first time through. This has often turned up bugs and other issues all on it's own. Having to explain something uses a different part of your brain and opens your mind up to see the problems or possible problems.
Ask someone else to run the scripts for you. I normally do this in a Dev/Test environment. I do this for two reasons 1) Validate my documentation 2) validate the procedure I am doing. Often my teammates have asked questions that point out things I forgot to account for or code in. They also tend to be less stressed than if they are deploying to a production environment. Doing this earlier is better. Repeating it when you have to make a change makes you a better programer/scripter. Your teammate finding that one thing that would have driven you nuts during a deploy is, in a word, priceless.
Communicate what it is you are trying to automate. Be as specific as possible in the communications. Making everyone involved aware of what it is you are doing goes a long way towards building their trust. It is the most basic way to be inclusive in your process. Do your best not to make it sound like you are asking for permission to do the automation. You are doing this to make the environment better and no one should ever question that. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be open to feedback. You should actually be ready for it because it will happen. While everyone in any given IT organization may not be expert communicators you need to take all feedback without feeling persecuted. Remember this is just as scary for them as it is for you at the beginning. So they may need time to adjust and gain confidence also. The worst thing you can do is start or continue a flame war about your automation process. Respond respectfully and with clarifications about thing
