Have you missed the first part of this blog series on the five DevOps tools that you simply cannot ignore? Click here to read the same. In this second part of this 2-part blog series, I will focus on SaltStack and Kubernetes.
SaltStack
DevOps specializes in continuous change and requires automation to manage the complexity and scale of infrastructure as well as code that is generated in a typical enterprise software development scenario. To top this, speed has become paramount to success which is the reason why many organizations view infrastructure as a means to an end, with the `end’ being quick development, testing, and deployment of applications. However, web-scale organizations and enterprise IT also want to push development faster but infrastructure at scale is complex, to say the least. As a result, the DevOps approach becomes difficult and it helps to have automation built for the same.
SaltStack is an open source software for modern IT automation. In the last five years, it is being used by thousands of DevOps and enterprise IT organizations to automate the management of data center infrastructure and application environments. Analysts vouch for Salt as the most intelligent, powerful and flexible open source software for various reasons such as:
- Provisioning, control, and configuration of any cloud system;
- Event-driven, intelligent orchestration for infrastructure security through audit, remediation, and policy compliance;
- Container management and introspection.
Salt is suitable for applying a patch to ten thousand systems, to help quickly deliver code to production, audit and secure code in a Docker container and so forth. In a way, Salt is a chosen answer for efficient automation of IT operations at scale.
To summarize, SaltStack Enterprise software helps DevOps organizations by orchestrating the efficient movement of code into production and by keeping complex infrastructures fine-tuned for optimal business service and application delivery. SaltStack orchestrates the DevOps value chain and helps to deploy and configure dynamic applications, and the general-purpose infrastructure they run on, faster and easier than ever.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source platform for automating deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers. Kubernetes helps to deploy applications rapidly, scale as required and roll out new features.
To understand what Kubernetes offers in the DevOps world it is important to rewind a bit. In the past, applications would be installed on a host using an operating system. This would lead to entanglement of applications’ executables, configuration libraries, and life cycles with each other and also with the operating system. In the Kubernetes world, containers are deployed based on operating system-level virtualization rather than hardware virtualization. Since containers are separate from the host they have their own file systems. They obviously cannot view each other’s processes. Since they are decoupled from the underlying infrastructure, they can easily be ported across clouds and operating systems. This system works powerfully well as it allows the creation of application container images at build/release time rather than deployment time, thereby decoupling applications from infrastructure. It leads to rapid application development and deployment and continuous development, integration and deployment. Kubernetes also provides for consistency across development, testing, and production.
To summarize, the focus has shifted to distributing and scaling applications that can be deployed, run and monitored effectively, paving the way for Kubernetes which helps to run a cluster of containers, manage deployments of applications across these containers and finally also monitor these containers. Kubernetes helps DevOps to quickly and efficiently respond to customer demand.
Missed the first blog? Click to read: `Five DevOps Tools That You Simply Cannot Ignore – Part 1′.
