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We're currently using "knife ec2 server create" to create servers, and it is indeed a pain. That's part of what's driven my interest in Terraform. In practice

We're currently using "knife ec2 server create" to create servers, and it is indeed a pain. That's part of what's driven my interest in Terraform. In practice, though, we're hampered by Terraform's only partial support of the detailed EC2 instance properties.[1] Compared to the full EC2 API[2], there's quite a bit missing (e.g. declare an EBS volume as encrypted). Is there any way around this by passing arbitrary key-value pairs somehow, or are we limited to Terraform's documented API? [1] http://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/r/instance.html http://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/r/instance.html [2] http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-RunInstances.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReferenc...

mattzito 12y ago
So - I have no idea, I've never used Terraform, I just spend a lot of time thinking about infrastructure automation theory. I think that would be a good feature if it doesn't exist, though.
- joshpadnick 12y ago
  Thanks for your reply. I actually do have a couple related "practice" questions for the theory guy. Do you have any recommendations on good tools for: a) visually modeling your servers (something more than just lists of instances) b) tool for monitoring all active jobs to make sure they're all running (I know, lots of ways to solve this one, Deadman's Snitch, Jenkins, etc., but curious what you think) c) basic tool for dashboard of servers (I guess Nagios is the most common, and there's also commercial tools like Librato). I realize those are loaded questions. Feel free to answer partials if you're short on time. Thx for your input!
  - mattzito 12y ago
    Sorry for not responding sooner, I'm actually at my employer's user conference, so I was lured away by the prospect of food and booze. a) No! Though this is actually a conversation I've had here with a couple of customers - people want a good service modeling and visualization option. I'm thinking about how that might work. b) So, I think this is a space where the commercial tools (my employer makes a really good one, control-M) do better than OSS, I think because the nuance of job management and scheduling is so boring and detail-oriented. For OSS, Rundeck wants to do this work. c) Nagios, Monit, Zenoss - all can do what you want, depending on the nuances of the use cases. Hope this is helpful, thanks for the questions.
    - joshpadnick 12y ago
      Thanks very much for your reply. Both Rundeck and control-M look like they're worth checking out.

mattzito 12y ago

So - I have no idea, I've never used Terraform, I just spend a lot of time thinking about infrastructure automation theory. I think that would be a good feature if it doesn't exist, though.

joshpadnick 12y ago
Thanks for your reply. I actually do have a couple related "practice" questions for the theory guy. Do you have any recommendations on good tools for: a) visually modeling your servers (something more than just lists of instances) b) tool for monitoring all active jobs to make sure they're all running (I know, lots of ways to solve this one, Deadman's Snitch, Jenkins, etc., but curious what you think) c) basic tool for dashboard of servers (I guess Nagios is the most common, and there's also commercial tools like Librato). I realize those are loaded questions. Feel free to answer partials if you're short on time. Thx for your input!
- mattzito 12y ago
  Sorry for not responding sooner, I'm actually at my employer's user conference, so I was lured away by the prospect of food and booze. a) No! Though this is actually a conversation I've had here with a couple of customers - people want a good service modeling and visualization option. I'm thinking about how that might work. b) So, I think this is a space where the commercial tools (my employer makes a really good one, control-M) do better than OSS, I think because the nuance of job management and scheduling is so boring and detail-oriented. For OSS, Rundeck wants to do this work. c) Nagios, Monit, Zenoss - all can do what you want, depending on the nuances of the use cases. Hope this is helpful, thanks for the questions.
  - joshpadnick 12y ago
    Thanks very much for your reply. Both Rundeck and control-M look like they're worth checking out.