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

[Benjamin Bytheway < >]

I'm currently trying to untangle this question for my own organization. If the mantra "configuration as code" is really true, shouldn't _everything_ (that isn't true dynamic/discoverable data, like ohai) be "code" and under SCM?

On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Lamont Granquist < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

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.