More players are beginning the realize the benefits of the kind of model-driven configuration thinking that CFEngine introduced in the 1990s. Today, this kind of pre-programmed, policy-based configuration and repair are becoming essential partners for the commoditization of computing services in the Cloud. CFEngine has been there since before the beginning, and it still doesn’t care where your computer is located.
CFEngine introduced the idea of what is now called `model driven' configuration in the early 1990s. Although the name changes (e.g. policy driven, declarative, etc) the idea is still very simple: instead of describing procedural changes, you describe the desired state or outcome for your system.
As CFEngine originator Mark Burgess has often said, “When you’re cooking a lot of recipes look the same – flour, eggs, sugar, water in some kind of order. If you don’t know what it is you are aiming for (a cake or a loaf of bread), you can’t really tell if you are succeeding. It’s the same with configuration – edit this file, install that package, but to what end?” By forcing yourself to document the intention of the system, by promising what it will actually do, system administrators can bring a new found clarity to the data center. As Burgess remarks, “The challenge of the decade is going to be Knowledge Management”.
Some recent news in this area:
