Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1. Configuration Management
and Chef
Chef is a configuration management tool for information technology (IT) professionals, like
you. Because there are a wide variety of definitions for the term
configuration management
,
let's take a moment to explain what
configuration management
means in the context of this
topic and why you need a configuration management tool. We'll also cover what Chef is, and
why you need it as well.
What Is Configuration Management?
With respect to IT,
configuration management
covers the set of engineering practices for
managing the following entities involved in delivering software applications to consumers:
▪ Hardware
▪ Software
▪ Infrastructure
▪ People
▪ Process
Configuration management came about to address the fundamental challenges involved in
doing group work. Managing change when you are a lone system administrator with a hand-
ful of servers to manage is relatively straightforward. Trying to coordinate the work of mul-
tiple system administrators and developers involving hundreds, or even thousands, of servers
and applications to support a large customer base is complex and typically requires the sup-
port of a tool.
A modern IT configuration management tool usually involves an implementation inspired by
the automation and policy-based theory originally developed by Mark Burgess. He deve-
