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Automation Chapter

New Chapter General Advice

Please indicate what you would expect to see covered in this chapter. We will integrate your comments into the chapter writing process. As new chapters become ready for draft review and outside review, we will post that information here. If you are interested in reviewing a chapter, please be sure to leave comments here letting us know what think should be in the chapter.

-- StrataChalup - 17 Aug 2006

Hello Strata and Tom,

For a chapter on automation, I would expect to see discussion of the technical options available such as Cfengine, Sun's N1 and homegrown varieties. I would also expect to see a discussion on the reasons behind automation, such as removing mundane and repeatable tasks, reducing error, allowing the Senior SA to work on higher-level problems or allowing the task to be delegated to a junior SA.. A further idea would be to link the automation to the theories of process optimisation, Six Sigma type stuff, but that may be out of scope for the book.

This also ties in with the chapter on change management. Moving from a change to a procedure to an automated procedure is all about improving the processes used by System Administrators.

-- NathanDietsch - 26 Aug 2006

Ooh yes, they're good ideas. Also Loudcloud Opsware. Discuss how such tools require strong audit trails and good seperation of responsibilities (the SA for group A should not be able to affect group B's machines). Discuss the pain from going from a collection of disparate "almost identical" systems to a process that enforces commonality. Also discuss how these tools can be an 'attractive nuisance' for hackers. If you can break into the command console then you control the whole managed infrastructure. If the communications between console and client aren't sufficiently secure (no SNMPv1, thank you!) then the client can be taken over by rogue command sessions.

-- StephenHarris - 28 Aug 2006

NO! No no no! We don't mention particular products. I don't know if Loudcloud will be "the best" in 5-10 years. Instead, we talk about the qualities that make something good, and tell people to look for those qualities. In the automation chapter, we're going a lot lower-level... when/why automate and some general tips.

Anyway... this chapter isn't going to be in the next edition. We've run out of time. I think I just would have ended up repeating what's in the Automation chapter of TM2SA anyway pout.

-- ThomasLimoncelli - 01 Nov 2006