What Is Chef And Why Do We Need It?

A powerful automation tool used in configuration management by transforming infrastructure into code is called Chef. It effectively manages infrastructure by writing a code rather than using rigorous manual methods and for coding it uses pure-Ruby, a domain-specific language (DSL). Irrespective of the size and the operating environment, Chef can effectively automate your Infrastructure configuration, deployment of applications and configurations that are being managed across your network.

Similar to Puppet, Chef follows a Client-Server architecture with an extra workstation component attached to it. In Chef, the nodes will get updated automatically without executing even a single command on the Chef Server and this is called as Pull configurations.

Why do we need configuration management and Chef?

Let us pick a scenario wherein there will be a mega sale happening tomorrow and you need to deploy a software over bundles of systems. When you do this task manually, there are possibilities that you might not be able to complete within the deadline and even if it is done, there are chances of multiple errors. There are even situations when the updated software might not function properly and you want to revert it, but “is it possible to do overnight?”.

Configuration management is introduced to solve this problem and the automation tools such as Chef, Puppet, etc has been used here.

Benefits of Chef:

This infrastructure automation tool Chef, has grown rapidly in the past few years for its immense benefits that they lay in configuration management. In fact, they are making the IT management easier, more efficient, and more flexible than before. Particularly, its concept of “infrastructure as code” is becoming increasingly popular.

Shall we glance at key benefits of Chef?

1) Speedy Software Delivery: When you are able to deliver the software changes quickly it accelerates your business speed. Automation of IT infrastructure helps for a fast deployment of all the software requirements such as creating new environments, testing and reviewing changes to the code base, deploying new software versions, etc.
2) Increased service Resiliency: It is important that the error needs to be rectified pretty fast in addition to speedy deployment. Infrastructure automation increases your system’s resiliency and thereby decreasing the downtime.
3) Effective Risk Management: Chef’s infrastructure automation is capable of lowering the risk and improving the compliance at all stages of a development. In fact, the security policies and compliance can be encapsulated as part of a Chef recipe and tested automatically before it is being deployed.
4) Accelerates Cloud adoption: Many organizations are switching to a cloud environment and this move is much smoothened by using Chef. The servers and infrastructure can be automatically installed, configured, and provisioned easily with Chef recipes.
5) Manage Cloud as well as Data Center: Chef is the perfect solution that fits all the needs, be it cloud or datacenter and you keep using Chef even if you change the cloud providers.
6) A streamlined IT operations and workflow: With increasing complexities in IT infrastructure of an organization, Chef breaks this complexity and streamlines your IT operations and workflow. Chef provides a pipeline for continuous deployment starting from building to testing and all the way through delivery, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

With the above-discussed benefits, there is no doubt in “Why Chef has been widely used Automation and Configuration Management tool by many organizations?”. Hence to start your career in the most demanding IT skill set, you need to attend a training program in order to garner a strong knowledge to work in automation using Chef tool. Enroll for a course in SKILLOGIC™ to help you to learn Chef Automation from the ground up. Connect with us, to know about the training schedule, pricing and other details.

Training in Bangalore: https://skillogic.com/devops-training/devops-certification-bangalore/

Training in Chennai: https://skillogic.com/devops-training/devops-certification-chennai/