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Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

artsy.github.io

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#11

OpsWorks is a nice convenience on AWS and is implemented with the Chef configuration management tool (provided by Opscode, the company behind Chef, hence the name). Shameless plug: If you know you should be using a configuration management tool, but haven't picked one yet, I'll be releasing a book on Wednesday Sept 4th just for you. The book is called "Taste Test" and compares Puppet, Chef, Salt, and Ansible. In the…

sounds interesting. I was reading some great things about ansible and am keen to give it a try. However, reading about AWS Opswork makes me wonder if it's better to stick to chef, even if it's not as easy. If Opsworks picks up, chef's likely to become the gold standard. I'm curious to know your take on this?

I've been recommending and using Puppet and Chef for years. However, the new generation of tools like Ansible and Salt are miles ahead in terms of usability.

Ansible in particular makes it easy to be up and going in a matter of minutes where some of the other tools literally take days. So, if you're on the fence, I'd try Ansible first, then if for some reason it's not working for you, then consider Chef.

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#12
post #9

First, some pedantry: I love Artsy's writeups but I'm really surprised at why they use that purple for their body text color. Every time I read their engineering blog, I use the web inspector to change the color to #222...and the purple actually looks great as an accent (for links)...I might have to rip off that color scheme for my own blog. /pedantry I'm kind of surprised I hadn't heard of OpsWorks before, but I gue…

Thanks for the kind words! To be honest, I have to agree with you about the text color. Will fix.

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#16
post #9

First, some pedantry: I love Artsy's writeups but I'm really surprised at why they use that purple for their body text color. Every time I read their engineering blog, I use the web inspector to change the color to #222...and the purple actually looks great as an accent (for links)...I might have to rip off that color scheme for my own blog. /pedantry I'm kind of surprised I hadn't heard of OpsWorks before, but I gue…

If @joeyAghion doesn't get to it first, we will gladly take a PR to change the color! Our blog repo is public here: https://github.com/artsy/artsy.github.com/tree/source

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#17

are they still using an ancient version of chef? trying to backport community cookbooks was an exercise in frustration

They were originally using an older version, but Chef 11 is now supported. I believe it's the default for new stacks, and old ones can be updated from the stack settings page.

http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/07/24/aws-ops...

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#18

This is a 13-minute demo of AWS Opsworks (I am the author, and I work for AWS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_TtiSJSbHo&feature=youtu.be I hope you'll find it useful.

edit: thanks for updating to chef 11!

Chef 11 support was announced recently: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/07/aws-opsworks-update-custo...

Re: Introduction to AWS OpsWorks

#20
post #17

are they still using an ancient version of chef? trying to backport community cookbooks was an exercise in frustration

They were originally using an older version, but Chef 11 is now supported. I believe it's the default for new stacks, and old ones can be updated from the stack settings page. http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/07/24/aws-ops...

thank god. that was the only dealbreaker for me. thanks for the article by the way! and the free wine on fridays
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