Item: Salt Project
Rating: 10
Author: Valentin Höbel

Overall Satisfaction with VMware vRealize Automation, with SaltStack Config

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I can not provide many details. However, let's say that SaltStack was used for the whole Linux infrastructure.

SaltStack is able to provide many benefits within one set of tools: Configuration Management, Orchestration, massive parallel sys administration and remote execution and cloud management.

With SaltStack, one is able to manage complex IT infrastructures, consisting of internal and external provides (such as Azure, for example).

Pros and Cons

Pros

Configuration Management
Parallel system administration
Remote Execution
Cloud connectors
Orchestration
Update and patch management
Automation

Cons

Managing network hardware should be more native and easy
SaltStack should buffer jobs and, when a client returns, make sure it is executed proberly
SaltStack should provide basic pillar and states structures to help get newbies started

Return on Investment

It is hard to measure since SaltStack is free and open-source software
SaltStack makes it possible to manage a large server farm with only few staff members

Alternatives Considered

Puppet, CFEngine and Ansible

SaltStack beats all of the tools above since it is a "6-in-one" solution: Config Management, Orchestration, Automation, parallel sys administration, remote execution and cloud management.

The other solutions only solve one or two problems.

Other Software Used

Kernel-based Virtual Machine

Likelihood to Recommend

SaltStack can be used to manage large server farms and for configuration management. SaltStack does very well with Linux and Unix systems and is also able to manage Windows servers and clients; however, managing Windows is not its biggest strength. SaltStack should not be introduced if the amount of servers to be managed is very small (e.g. less than 3-4).

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