Automate All the Things

The value of automation, and how to provision an app stack end to end with Terraform, Ansible, and Rubrik.

Had some technical challenges the night before the presentation, so had to rebuild the entire environment in AWS the night before, which meant the Terraform piece was moot. Code can be found on my GitHub

Transcript

1. Automate All The Things Automating build and protection of a vSphere environment with Rubrik, Terraform, and Ansible @mo6020 Ed Morgan | Office of the CTO, Rubrik
2. Agenda • Who are Rubrik? • The value of automation • Example application stack and how to automate build and protection • Live Demo
3. Who are Rubrik?
4. Hello, I’m Ed. Solutions Architect, Office of the CTO @ Rubrik “Full Stack Engineer” Datacentre Infrastructure Cloud Architecture DevOps & CI/CD Infrastructure as Code Blog: https://edmorgan.info Twitter: @mo6020 Email: ed.morgan@rubrik.com
5. 5 Back-to-Back-to-Back VMworld Best of Show Best of Show two years in a row. VMworld US and Europe. Gold at VMworld three years in a row for Data Protection. Gold for Security.
6. 6 Data Management: 1990s to Present Backup Software Backup Servers Backup Proxies Replication Catalog Database Tape Off-site Archive Backup Storage a Dedupe Metadata X Automation Cloud Security X X
7. 7 Meet Rubrik Cloud Data Management Backup Software Backup Servers Backup Proxies Replication Catalog Database Tape Off-site Archive Backup Storage a Dedupe Metadata Automation Cloud Security A single software fabric for complete data management across data center and cloud
8. How It Works Enterprise Backup Re-Imagined • Simple to Setup, Simple to Use • All Enterprise Applications • Instant Recovery 1 • Cloud Archival • Google-like Search on Cloud • File-level Recovery Built for Cloud 2 SLA Policy Engine Log Management VM NAS Obj Storage NFS Tape Private Cloud • End-to-End Encryption • Native Immutability Against Ransomware • AI/ML-Driven Ransomware Recovery Built for Security 3 8
9. 9 Run Rubrik Anywhere – Data Center to Cloud VM NAS S3 EC2 Storage Virtual Machine
10. Everything Can Be Automated 10 APIs RESTful APIs to automate IT service delivery. Automate VM provisioning, test/dev, self-service file recoveries, customized reporting, and more vRealize Automation …and more
11. The value of automation
12. The Business Problem 12 • IT Operations are risky • Failure is expensive • Shadow IT/Compliance challenges • IT must prove value. ”Do more with less” • Skills shortage
13. The Technical Problem 13 • Increasing number of technologies in the DC • Drive to provide self-service • Variety of programming/scripting languages • Systems more complex than ever before • Increase in technical debt
14. 14 Source: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/survey/IT-priorities-2017-A-mix-of-forward-looking-and-traditional-tech
15. Who is driving the industry to automate? 15 • C-level execs – do things faster, outpace the competition • IT Directors – reduce risk, become more agile • Customers – expect to receive services easily and on-demand (thanks Apple!) • Devs – need quick and programmatic access to infrastructure
16. What is DevOps? 16
17. What is DevOps 17 Collaboration is key, this is a cultural change. The three ways: • Systems Thinking – see the system as a whole and identify bottlenecks • Feedback Loops – ensure everyone knows when an issue is identified and that it is understood • Continuous learning - keep making iterative improvements in the process. Strive to make the process error free, highly efficient, and 100% automated
19. Common Automation Tools 19 • Software Development Kits (SDKs) • REST APIs • PowerShell Modules • CLI Tools (bash, etc)
20. Why REST APIs? 20 • Easy, standard, web-native way for systems to talk • Based on HTTP standards • Simple building block for automation
21. What does a REST call look like? 21 DISCLAIMER: This is not a sexy demo
22. What does a REST call look like? 22 Request: curl -X GET --header 'Accept: application/json' 'https://rubrik.demo.com/api/v1/cluster/me' -k -u 'admin:MyP@ss!'
23. What does a REST call look like? 23 Request: curl -X GET --header 'Accept: application/json' 'https://rubrik.demo.com/api/v1/cluster/me' -k -u 'admin:MyP@ss!’ Response: { "id":"89fc0d86-6f1c-4652-aefa-37b7ba0e6229", "Version":"4.0.4-568", "apiVersion":"1" }
24. What is the big deal with REST APIs then? 24 • Most legacy DC equipment doesn’t have them • Even ‘new’ products from legacy vendors often do not have REST APIs • Where they do exist typically they are bolted on top of existing platforms • REST APIs mostly do not cover 100% of application functionality
25. The Dream 25 • API First • The UI consumes the REST API • 100% coverage of application features • Product “drinks it’s own champagne” • Makes automating the product a dream
26. • Example application stack and how to automate build and protection
27. The “app” we’re going to build 27 • Web Server – Nginx • Database – MySQL • Protection with Rubrik
28. Deployment Process 28 • Spin up VMs with Terraform • Call Ansible from Terraform to install software • Use Ansible Rubrik’s Python SDK to protect workloads with Rubrik – Register VMs against Rubrik cluster – Create Fileset to define what we’re backing up – Assign Rubrik SLA to new VMs – Trigger an On-Demand backup
29. Live Demo – present your offerings to the demo gods now, please.
30. Questions? Answers!
31. Don’t Backup. Go Forward.