I had a great night last night playing around with Puppet, an open-source enterprise systems management tool. Puppet is a tool that allows you to write “manifests” for how to set up a server, or a part of a server, automatically. Using Puppet you can deploy ready-to-go systems into the cloud with a single command (after you’ve written all of your manifests). It allows for rapid scaling of an environment and also the ability to create multiple environments that are nearly if not completely identical to each other.

Another tool similar to Puppet is Chef. From what I can tell, both are equally well regarded. I will be using Chef at work, so I’m playing with Puppet at home for now so I can get an introduction to both tools.

Having had lots of experience supporting various sites and applications, it’s really fun to start using a tool that would drastically make that job easier. There’s always a desire to go back and do something you’ve done in the past, but to do it better with the benefit of one’s experience. If I were to start an IT operation from scratch, either Chef or Puppet would be a central part of my strategy.

Also, a note — I’ve gotten to the point in my life when a great Friday night is one spent at home, up late, playing with stuff on the computer. No apologies for that!