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The wonderful world of Puppet
October 16, 2015

The wonderful world of Puppet

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

3.0

Modules Used

  • NTP
  • Apache
  • Tomcat
  • Accounts
  • Firewall
  • FirewallD
  • Custom

Overall Satisfaction with Puppet Data Center Automation

We use Puppet Data Center Automation to standardize our server deployments. This allows us to maintain a uniform configuration across application servers ensuring specific production level standards are met and kept in sync. We are able to be sure accounts are provisioned and deprovisioned in a timely manner as well as centrally control application configuration updates/changes.
  • It allows for uniform configuration.
  • It allows you to deploy software effectively without having to learn specific nuances of it.
  • It allows you to be OS agnostic in that it can translate commands between OS distributions.
  • The OpenSource branch of the product does not come with a reasonable dashboard. A third party one must be used.
  • Puppet by itself, while good, needs additions made to it to become great, such as Heira, r10k, GIT, etc...
  • Puppet has a learning curve. It is best to start with something small, such as NTP and work your way up from there. Do not start with something like Apache.
  • Deploying MCollective really helps to round out the Puppet experience.
  • Mundane configuration is automated.
  • The ability to deprovision accounts across the enterprise quickly is invaluable.
  • Mean time [to] create a new deployment is greatly minimized.
Puppet has a very wide user base with many organizations tht support it as well as conferences and events. Puppet DSL is based in Ruby while the server is now in Clojure providing ease of configuration with the power of scale. Puppet is a great entry point into the world of systems automation as it has a number of third party tools that wrap around it and expand what is possible.
If you are primarily a Windows shop, Puppet Data Center Automation is less suited to your environment. While it works, and there are modules for Windows, the community is less developed than the Linux/Unix community. If you already have a background in Puppet on Linux or a supportive management, Puppet on Windows could use help in the community. The more who start using it, the better it will get.