Continuous Delivery/Release – a Basic Howto with Examples

When we first went to build a setup with Continuous Delivery (CD) as the goal, we found plenty of excellent theoretical fodder but little in the way of specifics. As with all the hubbub about the cloud, we wondered how to actually get there let alone how best to get there. Here is a rundown of the basics. Continue reading

Chef Node Deregistration For Autoscaling Groups

Cloudreach in the UK has a great article on Chef node de-registration. With autoscaling groups bringing machines up and down all over the place, Chef needs a way to know that they’ve been terminated and remove them from the configs lest things become a cluttered mess. Luckily, AWS provides some great shortcuts. We implemented the solution, then bulletproofed it. Here’s what it takes. Continue reading

Chef and CloudFormation

The ephemeral nature that comes along with cloudy virtual machines means that we need to be able to go down and come up at any time without flinching. What good is hardware scriptability if the app itself doesn’t lend itself to automated management? For years, we’ve been using custom sets of homebrew scripts, checked-in alongside both the app code and any virtual hardware scripting. It was cumbersome, but it worked beautifully. Chef promised to make the cumbersome elegant. Did it? Continue reading