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Your mention of APT suggests to me that you're trying to maintain a stable deployment on a pet server, whereas GP's mention of Terraform suggests they've built
by jhugo 5y ago
Your mention of APT suggests to me that you're trying to maintain a stable deployment on a pet server, whereas GP's mention of Terraform suggests they've built some sort of pipeline for repeatable deployment.
GP's approach does have a bigger learning curve for those that have never worked that way, but after that the ongoing maintenance is simpler, less time consuming and much lower risk. That probably explains most of the difference in your experiences.
- dx034 5y agoWe don't have an overly complex setup, just some automations along the way to make things easier the long way. Sure, it's a bit more complicated than manually installing a server, but learning how to use terraform and automating patching/backups etc isn't rocket science. Anyone with some knowledge of Linux/Programming shouldn't struggle setting this up within a few days. And it adds knowledge to the company that's very valuable. With Gitlab, as with most software, restarting it regularly outside of office hours is the best way to ensure a stable service. Also something SaaS can't do, as they never know when their customers need the software.
- thih9 5y agoMany companies with on prem setup also don’t know when their devs need the software. Some have people in multiple timezones, some do async work, etc.
- FooBarWidget 5y agoOur deployment is repeatable. Pet server but managed with Ansible. If it's on fire, provision new server, rerun Ansible, restore backup. Server manually provisioned instead of Terraform, but provisioning the server isn't the hard part anyway.
- dx034 5y agoIf that's your setup, we also just have Pet servers. Sounds pretty professional to me.