The Cloudcast #285 - Automation, DevOps & Reddit

The Cloudcast #165 - DevOps Automation as a Service

StackStorm - http://stackstorm.com/

• http://stackstorm.com/2014/10/07/dont-call-comeback-part-1/

• http://stackstorm.com/2014/10/08/dont-call-comeback-part-2-2/

• OpenSource & DevOps Movement into Infrastructure.next. Presentation given in an OpenStack vs. VMware context but great non technology analogies and lessons to learn: http://www.slideshare.net/StackStorm/scale-12x-openstack-vs-vmware-a-system?qid=33438ad7-a263-4164-9ceb-9b6021dd2af5&v=default

• Monitoring, Remediation, Automation (even mention ChatOps): http://www.slideshare.net/StackStorm/stackstorm-devops-automation-webinar?qid=33438ad7-a263-4164-9ceb-9b6021dd2af5&v=default&b=&from_search=1

Topic 1 - Tonight is interesting because we are pulling in pieces from a bunch of previous podcasts and past guest topics. We have spoken about the many emerging trends and use cases in DevOps, but a big problem has been how do you put all the pieces together. You hear about Jenkins, Docker, OpenStack, PagerDuty, Loggly, AWS, etc. A lot of moving pieces that we have to integrate together and then actually operate efficiently.

Let’s start at the start, what is the concept of Automation as a Service and what problem are we trying to solve?

Topic 2 - Quote from Blog: "because developers are in charge that every single API must be a first class citizen. They determine whether your API is inadequate very quickly. If you treat your APIs badly by deprecating them suddenly and without warning, you are essentially slapping developers that use your APIs in the face." - Very true. There is a presentation your company did on OpenStack vs. VMware and the idea of closed vs. open with some great analogies to history and advancements in efficient. How does AaaS help developers?

Topic 3 - Third Wave in IT. You present a potential framework:

1. Docker automating tracking of all dependencies for an environment while providing efficient and very fast to deploy containers; 
2. Jenkins automating QA testing; 
3. OpenStack and Docker orienting orchestration solutions 
4. Monitoring 
5. StackStorm and others are focusing on automation as a service - Remediation through automation?

Topic 4 - Is AaaS the “glue” between a bunch of existing projects and frameworks to create an automation workflow through change management, remote execution? Not trying to replace Docker, Salt, Ansible, Chef, OpenStack, Jenkins, New Relic? Aren’t all these integrations points a nightmare? Is this an on-prem product, cloud offering?

Topic 5 - You mention machine learning and artificial intelligence. This sounds a bit like what VMturbo tries to do at the hypervisor level. In discussion with them I know getting people flipping the bit that enables full automation makes some folks uncomfortable. They start to think of SkyNet in Terminator and the machines taking over the world. Thoughts?