Learning Puppet 4

Chapter 32. Assimilating Puppet Best Practices

• This chapter of the book is not about Puppet.
• This chapter covers the most important use of Puppet that I have ever written.

Both of these statements are true.

This part of the book doesn’t provide you with any new technology from Puppet Labs. Instead, it discusses successful ways of using Puppet within different types of organizations. It outlines the advantages and disadvantages of different implementation choices. It proposes questions you should be considering as you first deploy Puppet, or grow the deployment within your organization.

This part of the book is devoted to providing you with a window into the experiences and successes of the DevOps community as it has evolved.

Managing Change

Puppet and DevOps practices can bring incredibly beneficial change. There are many types of change, and we’re going to cover a few of them here.

Expecting Change

There is one universal truth about DevOps. When you first embrace DevOps—when you can declare the manifestation, when you embrace constant iteration and improvement, when you can encourage change rather than react to the consequences—your job will become bigger and greater than ever before. You can do more than ever before. Your environment will change.

You will change.

In many cases, a new Puppet implementation will enable months of rapid and exhilarating change. In some cases, it will be slow and progressive, and you won’t notice the depth of change until you look back and realize ...