IT Infrastructure Monitoring
Take Control of Your Server Infrastructure with Opscode
Building, operating, and maintaining server IT infrastructure can be cost-heavy and resource-intensive. Organizational needs can often change, requiring IT teams to scale their servers accordingly, which can eat up time and resources that could be otherwise spent on business-growing initiatives. Opscode was designed to help developers and system engineers save time and money by providing solutions to help IT departments develop fully automated server infrastructures.
Opscode provides solutions to enable companies to leverage a fully automated infrastructure that can be scaled up or down as needs change. This infrastructure is housed in the Cloud, providing organizations with a virtualized infrastructure that is available on demand. Opscode’s flagship product is Chef, an open-source system that provides a framework for deploying servers, applications, and infrastructure in the Cloud.
What does that mean? With Chef, developers can specify how and what part of their servers should be configured by writing “recipes” that describe what resources should be in what state, for example, which packages to install, which files to write, etc. Using these reusable configuration templates, Chef ensures that each resource is properly configured and also provides a flexible and repeatable mechanism to make sure that servers are running the way they should be. When changes are made, whether those include new applications or technology, Chef tells the Cloud what to do, seamlessly integrating any modifications into your infrastructure without disruption.
What makes Opscode and Chef worth noticing? For one, Chef is scalable and can be run anywhere, in public or private clouds. Chef is designed to leverage the power of the Ruby programming language and integrates with well-known platforms, including Rackspace and Amazon EC2, working seamlessly from laptops to datacenters. In a bid to extend the flexibility and operability of its product, Opscode recently announced that Windows Azure will now interoperate with Chef, which will provide full stack infrastructure automation. Together, Opscode Chef and Windows Azure will give developers the ability to create and manage Windows Azure instances from the command line, which will help to ensure that infrastructure stays consistent and is easily scalable.
Because Chef is an open source product, a community of developers and users provide a rich ecosystem of support. The Chef community is made up of over 13,000 registered users who provide best practices, FAQS, ideas, and more.
Chef is available as a hosted solution starting at $120 a month or as a private cloud solution that is housed inside an organization’s firewall. Companies who have turned to Opscode to automate their infrastructure include Rhapsody, LAN Airlines, the University of Minnesota, and others.
Opscode enables organizations to take control of their infrastructure by leveraging the power of the Cloud to easily configure, scale, and automate infrastructure and quickly rebuild in any environment—something your developers and system engineers will appreciate.
Want to get more information on infrastructure monitoring? Check out our side-by-side comparison of the leading platforms in the Business-Software.com Top 10 IT Infrastructure Monitoring Software report.
- Consultant
Darlene Lin
Expert in CRM, Social, ITSM/IT Help Desk, and ERP
