"Orchestrating Cloud Systems & Workflows with Opscode Chef"

Brief Description

Scriptable infrastructure is a new paradigm emerging in the cloud computing era. Momentum afforded by cloud computing technology can easily be lost in traditional IT management and configuration practices. Compute, storage, and networking can be allocated in a matter of seconds using powerful API's. Once you have these raw resources you need to configure them. That's where Opscode Chef comes in. We will teach you how to use Chef as a configuration management system. Using Chef you can build and deploy apps and services easily. Chef enables infrastructure as code.

Intended Audience

Researchers, IT management, systems administrators, operations staff & software developers looking for a practical introduction to systems automation, orchestration and "DevOps" taught by experienced trainers in a small-classroom "hands-on" setting. Also suitable for people seeking an introduction and some hands-on training covering the use of Opscode Chef.

Optional Prerequisite Training

We consider this course a natural "next-step" after the Amazon Cloud Training program. Attendance at an AWS Training session is not required or necessary but the topics do fit naturally together. AWS training attendees get a solid understanding of the AWS product/service landscape and how cloud building blocks can best be leveraged in research, engineering and informatics environments.

After one is familiar with what can be done on AWS, it's natural to switch gears and focus on how those systems, services and "building blocks" can be orchestrated to automatically launch, configure and manage complex systems, pipelines or workflows.

Level of Interaction

Technical training can be dry and boring. We understand that. Our training sessions always include individual access to fully configured and "ready to use" online training environments.

Materials are presented in a small-group lecture format with frequent instructor-led demonstrations, discussions and highlighted examples. Recorded screen-casts may be used on topics that are difficult to orchestrate live. Attendees will have dedicated access to cloud-resident training systems along with example code, scripts and self-paced activity worksheets that can be used for individual exploration and experimentation at any time during the course.

We provide all of the necessary access credentials so that attendees can experiment directly with the products and systems covered by the instructors.

Level of Difficulty

Our attendees have diverse backgrounds, job descriptions and technical skills. We try to have something for everyone – the course material is straightforward enough that people seeking a high level overview can just sit back and absorb the materials and participate in discussions. We also cater to the people who want to get deep and "hands on" by providing access to ready-to-use training environments, access credentials and various labs, exercises, demo ideas and self-paced activities.

Attendees should generally be comfortable using SSH clients and operating from the Linux command line. Anyone wishing to participate in the "hands-on" exercises and labs must bring a notebook computer with wireless connectivity, web browser and SSH client.

Familiarity with Linux and shell scripting (particularly Ruby) is highly desirable. Formal programming or software engineering experience is not required although it will be difficult to understand the automation and orchestration details if one is unable to understand the code and scripts being used. This training session covers orchestration and automation via the use of "Chef" from Opscode Inc. and is built around the use of the Ruby scripting language.

I'm a scientist, not a programmer! How do I know if I'm prepared for this class?

Familiarity with Python, Perl, Ruby or shell scripting is all that is really necessary to understand what is going on in the various Cookbooks and Recipes covered in this course. Ruby expertise is not required. If you still are not sure if this course will be a good fit we recommend checking out the following links:

• "Just enough Ruby for Chef" 

• Simple NTP Cookbook 

… the "just enough ruby for Chef" page highlights the type of Ruby syntax and idioms commonly found in the materials that will be used for training. The NTP cookbook is an actual real-world Chef Recipe used to install and configure the NTP time synchronization service on a machine. Feel free to browse those links, including the default NTP recipe file to get a sense of how Ruby is being used. It's perfectly fine not to have 100% comprehension but attendees should at least be able to read those files and have a rough idea of what is going on and what the scripts & files are trying to declare or do.

Schedule & Enrollment

Public classes are offered several times per year in partnership with Cambridge Healthtech Institute, see http://healthtech.com/cloud for details. BioTeam also offers private training delivered onsite at client facilities with content customized to meet interests and requirements.

Instructors

The class is generally taught by two dedicated instructors.

• Chris Dagdigian <chris@bioteam.net>

• Adam Kraut <kraut@bioteam.net>

Prerequisites

Attendees should have wireless-capable laptops with SSH clients and a modern web browser. We will provide login access and credentials for a fully-configured training environment.

We often have experienced and deeply interested attendees who wish to get the most out of the training experience. People falling into this category often prefer to work "live" off of their personal laptop rather than inside the training environment. People falling into this category are encouraged to visit the Chef Getting Started website. Progressing through the Getting Started page, including the "Fast Start Guide" will expose attendees to useful background information and will also ensure that the personal laptop has all of the necessary software and prerequisites locally installed.

Agenda

I. Intro & Logistics
Goal: Initial welcome, class logistics & access to the training environments.

II. Introduction to "Scriptable Infrastructure"
Goal: Discuss the effect that API-driven infrastructure has had on IT operation and systems administration and what new capabilities these features enable.

III. Why Chef?
Goal: Basic introduction to Opscode & Chef and how it became BioTeam's preferred systems automation & orchestration platform.

IV. Chef Overview – Architecture & Core Concepts
Goal: Understand what Chef is and how it is architected, define key concepts and terms and explore the various ways that individuals can deploy Chef (Open Source, Externally Hosted, Internally Hosted, chef-solo, etc.)

V. Introduction to Cookbooks, Recipes & Roles
Goal: Dive into the heart of Chef operation by showing, using and explaining Cookbooks, Recipes & Roles.

VI. Basic Chef Repository & Revision Control Workflow
Goal: Chef allows IT infrastructure and complex systems to be treated just like written source code and this includes the ability to integrate with common authoring and revision control systems. This section covers standard methods for maintaining a central repository and enforcing change-tracking and revision control in the Chef development workflow.

VII. Using Knife for Command & Control
Goal: Chef is also an API and there are many ways to use and interact with this API. In this module we will explore the use of "knife" which is the command-line Chef interface.

VIII. Developing Custom Recipes & Providers
Goal: Discuss and demonstrate various ways to customize and extend Chef to meet internal needs, use-cases and requirements.

IV. Wrap-up