Re: chef + vlad/capistrano?

[Michal Frackowiak <michalf@wikidot.com>]

Hi there,

we are also looking at Chef + Capistrano deployment for a scalable  
cluster of servers (in EC2) and we are puzzled about Chef and  
Capistrano working together. So far we came with a set of cookbooks  
that configure our servers and Chef really is working great here.

Our first idea is as follows:

1. New instances (nodes) register to chef-server first and get their  
configuration from there, depending on their type (app, web, worker,  
db etc). Role is passed as an attribute. We can launch new instances  
by Capistrano tasks.
2. Capistrano pulls list of :app, :web, :db servers dynamically from  
chef-server (or another registration server, iClassify?) through the  
role defer option.
3. We can run cap tasks on the cluster.

Obviously we want to add :app, :web or :worker on-the-fly, possibly  
with one or two commands, and later move to auto-scaling solutions.

I am not sure if this is an optimal design, and I am sure you already  
have an idea how Chef and Capistrano would eventually work. Any  
advice, ideo or a hint would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Michal

On Mar 2, 2009, at 5:31 PM, Adam Jacob wrote:
> Long term, I believe we will get to a place where tools like Vlad and
> Cap are orchestrating Chef Resources in real time, rather than
> directly modifying the system.

---------------
Michal Frackowiak
COO of Wikidot Inc.
michalf@wikidot.com
http://michalfrackowiak.com

Wikidot Inc.
Pl. Sw. Katarzyny 9
87-100 Torun
POLAND
Phone: +48564754757
Fax: +48564754756
http://www.wikidot.com/company