[chef] Re: Re: Re: Creating Amazon AMI's from Running Instances

[Daniel DeLeo < >]

On Monday, November 14, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Brad Knowles wrote:

> On Nov 14, 2011, at 9:43 AM, Clif Smith wrote:
> 
> > I use a multi-pronged approach to this. I have a image (Amazon AMI) with 
> > only the changes being the installation of the Omnibus client and the 
> > validation.pem.
> 
> I'm confused. I was under the impression that burning your own AMIs for use 
> with Chef was considered to be one of the worst possible anti-patterns.
> 
> Did I miss something?
The so-called "golden image" pattern where you hand roll some sort of VM 
image, copy it, and then manage it by hand thereafter is definitely 
considered an anti-pattern by config management advocates.

Baking some configuration into an image and managing it with Chef after boot 
isn't so much about good vs. evil as it is about tradeoffs and discipline. If 
you need or want low instance spin up times and have the time and discipline 
to keep your image(s) up to date and you have an automated, repeatable 
process for doing so, that's fine. Depending on your situation, you may even 
reduce the amount of by-hand work this way. Maximizing value trumps adhering 
to dogma, so do the right thing for _your_ infrastructure.


-- 
Dan DeLeo 
> 
> -- 
> Brad Knowles 
> <
 
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> SAGE Level IV, Chef Level 0.0.1