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
2. Hello! • Technical Community Manager, Opscode • Co-host of the Food Fight Show Podcast
3. Learning to Automate • Automation • Formal Training • Learning Experiences • Tips
4. Why Automate? • Deliver value to customers and stakeholders • Make IT Professionals happy
5. Business Drivers • Scale-out • Continuous Delivery • Compliance
6. IT Professional Happiness • Eliminate mundane and repetitive tasks • Reduce errors and incidents • Get to the Pub on time
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
8. Automation Framework • Open-source • Corporate and community backed • Skills in the marketplace
9. Learning Curve • New terminology • New programming language • Think about infrastructure in new ways
10. Challenges for Educators • Snowflake infrastructure • Deployment options • Varying background • Motivations for automation • Rate of innovation
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
12. Approach to Training - Puppet Labs • Fundamentals • Best Practices • Get up-and-running with Puppet • Finish with a capstone lab
13. Approach to Training - Opscode • Concepts and terminology • Configure workstations • Demonstrate capabilities • Lots of hands on and repetition
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
15. Students • CFEngine • Experienced Sysadmins • Puppet • At least Jr. Sysadmin Level • Chef • Sysadmins • Application Developers
16. Public vs. Private • Public • Generic • Student motivation is usually high • Private • More specific • Student motivation is more variable
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
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
19. The Afterclass • Documentation • On-line resources • “Office Hours”
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?
21. Learning • Most people have not been through formal training • Self-directed learning is the typical path to competency
22. Tale of 3 Automators • Champion • Trust Fund Kid • Developer-to-Operations
23. Champion • Experienced with configuration desperation • Start small with the basic tools of the framework • Leverage community assets • Layer in more advanced features
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
25. Developer-to-Operations • Looking for best practices and operations tribal knowledge • Dig into source code • Follow existing patterns
26. Improve the Learning Experience • So, how do we improve the learning experience?
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
28. Share with the Community • Share your experiences • Publish content and code • Mentor someone
29. Tools • Vagrant • Testing Frameworks • Make it easy for people to experiment • “hello world” • make it work • refactor
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
31. Tips • How did YOU learn to automate? • What tips can you share? • Tell us your story
32. Thank You • Diego Zamboni, CFEngine • Geir Nygård, CFEngine • Ralph Luchs, PuppetLabs
33. Thank You! Nathen Harvey @nathenharvey FOSDEM 2013