Learning to Automate

The slides used during our discussion at FOSDEM about learning to automate.

Transcript

1. Learning to Automate
   Nathen Harvey
   @nathenharvey
   FOSDEM 2013
   

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2. Hello!
   • Technical Community Manager, Opscode
   • Co-host of the Food Fight Show Podcast
   

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3. Learning to Automate
   • Automation
   • Formal Training
   • Learning Experiences
   • Tips
   

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4. Why Automate?
   • Deliver value to customers and stakeholders
   • Make IT Professionals happy
   

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5. Business Drivers
   • Scale-out
   • Continuous Delivery
   • Compliance
   

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6. IT Professional Happiness
   • Eliminate mundane and repetitive tasks
   • Reduce errors and incidents
   • Get to the Pub on time
   

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7. Evolving Towards Automation
   • Just make it work
   • Keep detailed notes in server.txt
   • Move detailed notes to a wiki
   • Write custom scripts
   • Store scripts in a version control system
   • not the dot-bak or dot-date kind
   • Snapshot and clone golden images
   • Roll your own automation framework
   

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8. Automation Framework
   • Open-source
   • Corporate and community backed
   • Skills in the marketplace
   

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9. Learning Curve
   • New terminology
   • New programming language
   • Think about infrastructure in new ways
   

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10. Challenges for Educators
    • Snowflake infrastructure
    • Deployment options
    • Varying background
    • Motivations for automation
    • Rate of innovation
    

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11. Approach to Training - CFEngine
    • Introduction to concepts, theory, and language
    • Show many examples of what can be done
    • Lots of repetition and hands-on exercises
    • Building trust in the system
    

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12. Approach to Training - Puppet Labs
    • Fundamentals
    • Best Practices
    • Get up-and-running with Puppet
    • Finish with a capstone lab
    

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13. Approach to Training - Opscode
    • Concepts and terminology
    • Configure workstations
    • Demonstrate capabilities
    • Lots of hands on and repetition
    

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14. Training Infrastructure
    • CFEngine
    • VMs on student machines
    • Puppet
    • VMs on student and instructor machines
    • Chef
    • Hosted Chef & EC2 nodes
    • Linux containers in training lab
    

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15. Students
    • CFEngine
    • Experienced Sysadmins
    • Puppet
    • At least Jr. Sysadmin Level
    • Chef
    • Sysadmins
    • Application Developers
    

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16. Public vs. Private
    • Public
    • Generic
    • Student motivation is usually high
    • Private
    • More specific
    • Student motivation is more variable
    

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17. Common Objectives
    • Motivated to continue using the framework
    • Automate common system administration tasks
    • Locate additional resources for help
    • Know that there’s much more to learn
    

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18. Learning Foundation
    • Classroom training can provide a good foundation for learning
    • Basic understanding of concepts and terminology
    • Familiarity with tools and workflow
    • Knowledge of additional resources
    

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19. The Afterclass
    • Documentation
    • On-line resources
    • “Office Hours”
    

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20. “Training”? Really?!
    • How many of you are using one of these three automation
    frameworks?
    • How many of you are using them to manage at least part of your
    production infrastructure?
    • How many of you attended “formal” training from one of the
    vendors?
    

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21. Learning
    • Most people have not been through formal training
    • Self-directed learning is the typical path to competency
    

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22. Tale of 3 Automators
    • Champion
    • Trust Fund Kid
    • Developer-to-Operations
    

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23. Champion
    • Experienced with configuration desperation
    • Start small with the basic tools of the framework
    • Leverage community assets
    • Layer in more advanced features
    

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24. Trust Fund Kid
    • Inherits an infrastructure already using automation framework
    • Struggles with the concepts
    • Solves a real problem and then things start to “click”
    • Lots of trial and error
    

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25. Developer-to-Operations
    • Looking for best practices and operations tribal knowledge
    • Dig into source code
    • Follow existing patterns
    

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26. Improve the Learning Experience
    • So, how do we improve the learning experience?
    

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27. Learn from the Community
    • Leverage Design Center, Puppet Forge, Community site
    • Conferences, MeetUps, and Hack Days
    • Read documentation, wikis, and blog posts
    • Listen to podcasts
    

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28. Share with the Community
    • Share your experiences
    • Publish content and code
    • Mentor someone
    

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29. Tools
    • Vagrant
    • Testing Frameworks
    • Make it easy for people to experiment
    • “hello world”
    • make it work
    • refactor
    

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30. Learning to Automate
    • Classroom training can provide a good foundation for learning
    • Experience pain, solve a real problem
    • Learn best practices from the community
    • Share experiences with the community
    

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31. Tips
    • How did YOU learn to automate?
    • What tips can you share?
    • Tell us your story
    

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32. Thank You
    • Diego Zamboni, CFEngine
    • Geir Nygård, CFEngine
    • Ralph Luchs, PuppetLabs
    

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33. Thank You!
    Nathen Harvey
    @nathenharvey
    FOSDEM 2013
    

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