[chef] Re: Re: best ticketing system for Chef

[Juan Jesús Ojeda Croissier < >]

Hi,

I'm going to answer about Redmine as it's the best I know. I hope
other people do the same with the others because is a interesting
topic (maybe a bit off-topic on this list, but interesting).

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 1:09 AM, Tetsu Soh 
<
 >
 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thank all of you for your reply and suggestions.
>
> I hope the ticket system can
> 1. generate request/ticket with
> - server status awareness
> - server inventory awareness
>

There is nothing like that in Redmine (I guess non of them has it),
but it can be easily implemented on Redmine via plugins. Redmine is a
Rails application and it could be talk through REST easily with Chef
to ask all these.
There are a lot of good plugins to learn of:
http://www.redmine.org/plugins?page=1

And there is a good documentation about how to write your own:
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Plugin_Tutorial
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Plugin_Internals
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Hooks
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Hooks_List

> 2. customizable workflow
>

In Redmine the workflow is very customizable. You can create type of
trackers, roles, personal fields... You can create from very simple
tickets with just a few fields to very complex and specific tickets,
even for the same project using different tracks. And you can do it
from a nice web ui.
Well, I didn't explain myself very well, but is easier to just try.

Here some info:
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/RedmineIssueTrackingSetup
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/RedmineRoles
http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Administrator_Guide

> 3. LDAP/AD support
>

Redmine support LDAP for sure (this is what I was using) and I belive
it also support AD, but I didn't tried.

> 4. integrate with chef.  I don't know how to describe this.
> But what I want is, the system can process users' requests by converting 
> requests to Chef jobs,
> which may be correct cookbooks or recipes, executing the cookbook on 
> correct nodes and
> changing request's status based on the status of cookbook/recipes.
>

Man, I'm not quite sure about what you really want here, but I guess
you'll need to tailor it yourself in any ticket system you will
choose.
As I said before, you can do almost anything you want via plugins and
integrate it with Redmine, maybe this is a way of doing what you are
looking for.

> I may be too greedy. And I know maybe no ticketing system can achieve the 
> 1) and 4).
> So, I hope the system is highly and easily customizable.
> For example, I prefer RESTful API than SOAP.
>

Redmine uses RESTful API ;-)

> I wonder which is more costly, customizing an existing production or 
> developing a new one?
>

There are quite a few good open source ticket systems out there and
some are really good and stable, if I were you I'd give a thought
about extending one that already exist and is well tested.

I hope this helps :-)
Good luck ;-)


> Thank you.
> Tetsu
>
> On Mar 10, 2012, at 3:08 AM, Steffen Gebert wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I know a lot of people love Jira.
>>
>> I don't know, how good it fits for email communication, but OTRS or RT are 
>> in my owns the best fitting ones (Jira and Redmine are more issue trackers 
>> IMHO).
>>
>> If you like to give OTRS a try, here's my cookbook:
>> https://github.com/StephenKing/chef-cookbook-otrs
>>
>> Yours
>> Steffen
>>
>> On 09.03.2012, at 15:48, Juan Jesús Ojeda Croissier wrote:
>>
>>> +1 for Redmine. I've using for long time and after using Buzilla,
>>> Trac, Jira, Mantis and some others, I like Redmine the most.
>>> It is very flexible and customizable. I my former company we made
>>> adaptations for different kind of clients (tech and non-tech) based on
>>> plugins. It's quite ease to extend by creating plugins. And the
>>> workflow is very configurable via the web ui.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Kyle Bader 
>>> <
 >
>>>  wrote:
>>>> You might also check out redmine and RT. We use redmine for bugs and 
>>>> trello
>>>> for project management. Agile Zen is another Trello like solution.
>>>>
>>>> On Mar 9, 2012 5:37 AM, "Paul Morton - BIA" 
>>>> <
 >
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> JIRA takes some work, but it is worth it. JIRA is more than just bug
>>>>> tracking. It is an insanely customizable workflow engine. Many things 
>>>>> work
>>>>> well in the system, while things like reporting leave a bit of a sour 
>>>>> taste
>>>>> in your mouth. We use Jira for Development Support, Software Bug 
>>>>> Tracking
>>>>> and IT Helpdesk Ticketing.
>>>>>
>>>>> +1 for Jira
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>> P
>>>>> On Mar 9, 2012, at 5:22 AM, AJ Christensen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I use (for different clients) pivotal tracker, Trello, and JIRA with
>>>>>> varying degrees of success. JIRA takes some work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --AJ
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 10 March 2012 00:57, 哲 曹 
>>>>>> <
 >
>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am using Bugzilla to manage system management request.
>>>>>>> However, bugzilla does not good at customizable work flow.
>>>>>>> And I find it difficult to integrate it with Chef to process request
>>>>>>> automatically.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jira, Trac and so many ticketing/bug tracking systems are designed for
>>>>>>> software development but not for system operations.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, any suggestion on ticketing for system operations/infrastructure
>>>>>>> management ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tetsu
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Juanje
>>
>



-- 
Juanje