[chef] Re: Re: Re: SCM for node definitions?

[Lamont Granquist < >]

On 8/13/13 12:08 PM, Jeff Blaine wrote:
> On 8/13/2013 2:51 PM, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > u mean the node object?
>
> Yes. We're a "lab" type of environment with a wide array of node types 
> and configurations. It is a rarity for any of our servers to have the 
> exact same configuration as another. Fun...
>
> I'm having uneasy feelings lately about everything *except* our node 
> code/data being in files under SCM. It's a break from convention, an 
> unnecessary(???) anomaly for other less experienced staff to remember, 
> etc.
>
> I guess one could download all of the current nodes' JSON data into 
> files, check them all in, and somehow disable 'knife node edit' in 
> favor of 'knife node from file'?
>
> Anyone doing this?

That data isn't really code, its a row in a database.  I can see the 
value of periodically dumping the node data to SCM and storing it as 
history, but people don't normally try to manage database tables with 
SCM.  If you start trying to limit what can write to nodes and data bags 
you start to unnecessarily cripple your ability to use the chef database 
as a dynamic CMDB.  And IMO there is some unmined potential in treating 
databags and nodes as simple database tables and pushing data in them 
from other sources in the enterprise, and to look beyond only pushing to 
them from SCM.  You can try to push the SCM tooling as far as possible, 
and maybe I'm wrong about this and if we only took SCM /really/ 
seriously we'd discover something sublime about how to manage servers 
(e.g. being able to git push directly to a chef server), but I come from 
having managed servers using classical CMDBs and found them very 
powerful and trying to manage CMDBs entirely with SCM seems 
unnecessarily crippling to me...  You don't typically dump your LDAP or 
AD databases into SCM. Nobody dumps their customer databases into SCM.  
In the networking world rancid pushes Cisco configs into SCM, but its to 
maintain a history and log of changes, not to manage networking gear 
with SCM.