Immutable Infrastructure
The New App Deployment
AXEL FONTAINE
@axelfontaine
axel@boxfuse.com
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About Axel Fontaine
• Founder and CEO of Boxfuse
• Over 15 years industry experience
• Continuous Delivery expert
• Regular speaker at tech conferences
• JavaOne RockStar in 2014
@axelfontaine
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flywaydb.org
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boxfuse.com
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Let’s start with a small story
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http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gluehlampe_01_KMJ.jpg
Incandescent Bulb
60 W
LED Bulb
10 W
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Heater that gives off
a little bit of light
Light that gives off
a little bit of heat
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No content
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Edison Screw
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Simple, stable,
standards-compliant
interface
with a clear contract
My
responsibility
The electricity company’s
responsibility
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Simple, stable,
standards-compliant
interface
with a clear contract
Room
For
Innovation
Undifferentiated
Heavy Lifting
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back to IT infrastructure …
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POLL:
what type of infrastructure are you running on?
• On Premise
• Colocation
• Root Server
• Cloud
Can change as
long as it
complies with
the interface
contract
+
=
COLO
+ Undifferentiated
Heavy Lifting
Our
responsibility
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=
ROOT
SERVER
+ Undifferentiated
Heavy Lifting
Our
responsibility
Can change as
long as it
complies with
the interface
contract
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=
ROOT
SERVER
+ Undifferentiated
Heavy Lifting
Simple, stable, standards-
compliant interface
Software <-> Hardware
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Room
For
Innovation
+ Undifferentiated
Heavy Lifting
Could this be our industry’s Edison Screw?
Simple, stable, standards-
compliant interface
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Let’s talk about software
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POLL:
which level of automation are you at?
• Build
• Unit Tests
• Continuous Integration
• Acceptance Tests
• Continuous Deployment (Code)
• Continuous Deployment (Code + DB + Configuration)
• Infrastructure
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Build Test
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• One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
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why aren’t we doing the same
for the layers this is running on ???
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what could possibly go wrong
in these other layers ???
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missing software
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wrong name
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bad version
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incorrect permissions
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/2409633653/sizes/l/
critical resource in use
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what aren’t we holding our servers to the
same standards as our applications ???
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No content
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Build Test
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Build Test
App
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Multiple instances in multiple Environments
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Multiple instances in multiple Environments
• All instances should be as similar as possible
(any difference is a potential source of errors)
• That also includes your local Dev environment!
• Must be able to reliably provision new ones
(and recreate existing ones from scratch)
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates Updates
Updates
Sysadmin
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If I had asked my
customers what they
wanted they would have
said a faster horse.
Henry Ford
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates Updates
Updates
Sysadmin
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates Updates
Updates
Automated
Sysadmin
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fast forward to 2015 …
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Every day, AWS adds
enough server capacity
to power the whole $5B
enterprise Amazon.com
was in 2003.
Weekends included.
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"Advanced Test Reactor" by Argonne National Laboratory -
originally posted to Flickr as Advanced Test Reactor core,
Idaho National LaboratoryUploaded using F2ComButton.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Advanced_Test_Reac
tor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Advanced_Test_Reactor.jpg
"RIAN archive 341194 Kursk Nuclear Power Plant" by RIA
Novosti archive, image #341194 / Sergey Pyatakov / CC-BY-SA
3.0. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RIAN_archive_341194_
Kursk_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg#mediaviewer/File:RIAN_archi
ve_341194_Kursk_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg
Control Plane Data Plane
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Control Plane Data Plane
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• Shift to a world of abundance
(no more resource scarcity)
• Clean Control Plane/Data Plane split
with API-based provisioning
• Cost-based Architectures
with the ability to turn infrastructure off
Benefits of the cloud
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it is time to rethink the faster horse
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App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
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App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
Undifferentiated
Heavy lifting
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App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
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App
Machine
Image
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
Machine
Image
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates
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Machine
Image
Machine
Image
Machine
Image
Updates
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but there is one big problem left …
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Machine
Image Network Cable
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Machine
Image Network Cable
Multiple
GB
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Running servers in
production should be like
going backpacking. You
take the bare minimum
with you. Anything else
is going to hurt.
A Wise Man
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what is really adding business value ???
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Machine
Image Network Cable
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Editors
Daemons OS Kernel
Libraries
Utilities
Drivers
App
App Server
Package Mgr
Compilers
SSH
Firewall
Compatibility
Man Pages
Language
Log Files
Users
Shells
Network Cable
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OS Kernel
Libraries
App
App Server
Language
Bootable
App
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Multiple
GB 40 – 80
MB
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Network Cable
Bootable
App
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who is this for ???
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OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
12-factor app
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demo
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What are the implications ???
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Focus shift
Individual instances become disposable
Instance Service
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Treat servers like cattle instead of pets
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high uptime is a liability
The longer an instance is up,
the harder it becomes to recreate exactly
(and it will fail eventually!)
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How to solve service discovery ?
Use a stable entry point with an internal registry
Bootable
App
Bootable
App
Bootable
App
? Elastic
Load
Balancer
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What about security ?
When was the last time your toaster got hacked?
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What about security ?
• Smallest possible attack surface
• Vastly reduced implications due to low
uptime and transient nature of instances
• Very difficult to exploit other systems
because essential tooling is missing
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• Bake as much configuration as
possible for all environments
directly in the Bootable App
• Use environment detection
and auto-configuration
• Pass remaining configuration
at startup and expose it as
environment variables
what about configuration ???
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what about the database ???
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Bootable
App
what about the database ???
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what about the database ???
• Keep all persistent state, including the
database, out of the instance
• Many good hosted solutions available
like Amazon RDS or Google Cloud SQL
• Use a database migration tool like
Flyway to update on application startup
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Bootable
App
what about the logs ???
Ship logs to a central log server
where they can be
• aggregated
• stored and backuped
• indexed
• searched through a nice web UI
Many good hosted solutions
• Loggly
• Logentries
• Papertrail
• …
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what about sessions ???
Bootable
App
Keep session in an encrypted and signed cookie
• avoids session timeouts
• avoids server clustering & session replication
• avoids sticky sessions & server affinity
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what about rolling out new versions ???
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Load
Balancer
App
v1
App
v1 Logs
Availability Zone 1
Availability Zone 2
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Load
Balancer
App
v2
App
v1
App
v2
App
v1 Logs
Availability Zone 1
Availability Zone 2
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Load
Balancer
App
v2
App
v2
Logs
Availability Zone 1
Availability Zone 2
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what about containers ???
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understanding modern CPUs
Both Intel and AMD have
hardware support for virtualization
• isolation
• performance
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Bootable App
Hardware
Hypervisor
Bootable App
Hardware
OS+Container
Runtime
On Prem
On Prem
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Bootable App
Hardware
Hypervisor
Bootable App
Hardware
Hypervisor
OS+Container
Runtime
Bootable App
Hardware
OS+Container
Runtime
On Prem
On Prem /
Cloud
Cloud
Only makes sense if
you cannot afford
$9.60/month
granularity
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Bootable App
Hardware
Hypervisor
Bootable App
Hardware
Hypervisor
OS+Container
Runtime
Bootable App
Hardware
OS+Container
Runtime
On Prem
On Prem /
Cloud
Cloud
Only makes sense if
you cannot afford
1.3 cents /hour
granularity
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summary
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• One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment
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Bootable
App
• One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment