What is Puppet?

What is Puppet?

There are many configuration management tools available in the market but you must be wondering what is Puppet? and why it is so popular among all. In this blog what is Puppet? we will discuss all the unique features of this tool and the advantages it has above all other tools.
Puppet is an open source software configuration management tool which used for deploying, configuring, and managing servers. This technology is developed with a vision to manage the infrastructure on physical or virtual machines. As Puppet is developed using Ruby DSL language that runs on Unix-like and Microsoft Windows platforms and gives you the advantage of converting a complete infrastructure code format, which can be easily managed and configured.
Puppet can be used in several platforms like IBM mainframes, Mac OS server, etc. which is commonly used on Linux and Windows to pull the strings on multiple application servers at once. It encourages the users to keep the complexity under control by allowing them to write the code which can be reusable and can be configured easily. Over all it is a very demanding tool for Configuration Management.
Puppet has some functionality to follow like.
1. Puppet decides specific configuration for each and every host and it continuously take a look and make sure the needed configuration for the right host. If the configuration is altered on the host Puppet will return it back to the needed configuration for the right host.
2. Puppet can perform scaling-up and scaling-down systems of machines property very efficiently.
3. Puppet provides a full control over all configured machines by master-slave replication, so it bring together all machines and by changing master machine configuration it automatically generates to slave machines.
Previously I described that Puppet uses Master Slave architecture. Master and Slave makes communication by using a secure channel coded with SSL.

About Puppet

Ruby is the basic language of puppet and to create and manage modules Puppet uses a Domain Specific Language (DSL). You can download “Open Source Puppet” from Puppet’s website which is the basic version of Puppet configuration management. Puppet is licensed under the Apache 2.0 system. Puppet Enterprise has some other additional functionality like automated configuration management, role -base access control (RBAC) and reporting conformity.
There are two layers in Puppet, for giving hosts and services the required description for a proper look Puppet has a configuration language layer and the second one is an abstraction layer. Abstraction layer helps administrator on the implementation process of configuration on various platform. The platforms are like Linux, Windows and OSX. After implementation of configuration by administration monitoring and enforcing the service is provided by Puppet.
Puppet lab provides two types of models as Open Source Puppet and community modules called Puppet ecosystem.

Why Puppet matters?

It is open source:

As Puppet is open source technology it can be extended to build custom libraries and modules.

Increase delivery speed:

Puppet helps you to maintain and optimize the infrastructure across hybrid and cloud-native environments and thus increase the delivery speed.

Gain DevOps visibility:

Puppet helps to get full visibility and transparency for auditing and improve cross-team collaboration.

Reporting compliance:

Puppet Enterprise provides you graphical reporting so you can easily visualize the infrastructure, collaborate and respond to changes faster. It gives you real-time visibility into the effects of changes which helps you see what is going in your infrastructure.

Cost effective:

Puppet helps to reduce cost and effort whenever there is need to change minor code in hundreds of systems.

It is built for teams:

Puppet Enterprise built for distributed teams. It helps you with a standardized way so you can automate the delivery and operation of the software.

Speed in deployment:

Puppet helps the organization with significant time savings with its speed of deployment.

How it works?

Easily get started with infrastructure automation:

Puppet helps you to start automating easily with an agentless task-based approach.

Adopt modern technologies with consistency:

Puppet provides streamlined code delivery for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Full control and faster deployment of infrastructure:

Puppet provides you a standard way to deliver infrastructure code with full control and visibility. 

On the popularity base Puppet ecosystem modules have

Puppet Forge:

A central location for data storage and manage to provide 4000 pre-built user content modules access.

Beaker:

A test conducts through system in between all virtual machines whether those machines are interacting with each other and accepting each others query.

Facter:

It basically works to gather facts about nodes and also networking settings, OS type and version as well as hardware details.

Hiera:

For configuring data Hiera used as Key/ Value lookup tool.

MCollective:

MCollective used as a framework for building automated configuration system and software of computers for a executing a similar job.

PuppetDB:

It is used to search stored database for every nodes.

Razor:

It is an application to prepare and equip a network for providing new service to the users and to deploy and discover bare-metal VMs and virtual system.

Trapperkeeper:

To host lengthy running application it creates a dynamic, general purpose programming language called Clojure.

When to use Puppet?

Puppet is useful to you when you need to manage multiple servers at a time. Consider you have an infrastructure of about 100 servers and needs to keep all of them up to date and running. So to manage all these might be a difficult task to do, so in such cases, Puppet can be used by writing simple codes and deploying automatically on these servers which reduces the manual work and you can manage the entire infrastructure easily.

Puppet’s support, services, and training:

Puppet provides good support, service, and training whenever you need so that you can deliver business value to your organization.

Support:

Puppet has a good team of expert professionals who can provide you continuous support. Once you have a support contract for any of Puppet’s products than you will be eligibility take the help of the support team. The support team comes up with many benefits such as providing access to new product releases, helping fix the bugs, etc. 

Professional services:

Puppet’s professional service allows to focus on your business goals as they come up with services like deploying, developing and efficiently maintaining your infrastructure using Puppet. Puppet partner with you from Jumpstart packages to custom integrates and strategic planning helping you to create solutions.
Puppet provides many kinds of professional services like

• Implementation services.
• Performance optimization.
• Upgrade and migration services.
• Custom consulting.

Training:

Puppet comes up with a variety of courses that are led by Puppet professionals who provide both lectures and hands-on exercises which address real-world needs. Puppet offers lots of self-paced and instructor- led learning options providing the trainee’s flexibility in a personalized learning path.
Puppet provides different kinds of training like

• Instructor-led training
• Private training
• Self-paced training

Facts about Puppet:

• Large insalled Base
• Large Developer base
• long commercial track record
• Documentation
• Platform Support

Large installed base:

More about 30000 companies are using Puppet in IT world some of them are like, Google, Red Hat, Siemens, etc and also Stanford and Harvard law school like universities. An average of 22 companies is becoming new users of Puppet daily.

Large developer base:

Because there are large numbers of users so it needs a lot of professionals as developers make contributions to its source code for prosperity of Puppet.

Long commercial track record:

Puppet is used as commercial purpose since 2005 and deployed over huge infrastructures approx 5000+ machines. The project completed by Puppet makes it evolving gradually

Documentation:

It has a hundred pages of documentation and for its language and its resource type there is a comprehensive reference. So if you face any problem related with Puppet there is an easy answer for it.

Platform support:

As it is previously explained that Puppet is supported on multiple platform. It is easy to run Puppet on any platform either old version or a new one.

Applications of Puppet:

• Speed Recovery
• Speed Deployment
• Collaboration

Speed of Recovery:

Puppet can back to its own last stable state if a system gets reconfiguration without permission. Puppet also provides details by which you can repair system manually when its necessary.

Speed of deployment:

Puppet gives the deployment process a high speed that’s why it saves time and makes an opportunity to complete on time work by the operational team.

Collaboration:

Puppet uses a master-slave communication system. So it is easy to share configuration in between an organisation and it gives power to the team to work as a whole for delivering a much better service.
So at conclusion I suggest Puppet as the most powerful and well balanced toll for Configure Management. It has all necessary support which is needed for large enterprise when it comes for handling Configuration Management system properly. If any person want to be a DevOps Engineer then Puppet will fulfil his/her carrier . 

How Puppet is trending?

It has a large number of user base:

As Puppet is bringing up new features with every update it has gathered a large number of user base. Many companies are relying on Puppet configuration tool to manage their infrastructure and even universities like Harvard and Stanford use this tool.

Continuously updated:

Puppet is completely updating and coming up with new features with every release. This has helped the Puppet to overcome the challenge and provide solutions to even most complex problems.

Provides documentation:

Puppet keeps the documents of every discussion happen in various forums. Therefore if any users have any questions regarding Puppet tool they can easily find the answer to them.

Platform support:

Puppet runs on multiple platforms like Microsoft Windows or also on Linux which helps the users a lot.

Conclusion

As we discussed what is Puppet? why it matters, how it works and when Puppet can be used, we can say that it is one of the most used configuration management tool which can be used for deploying, configuring and also to manage servers. Puppet has helped the system administrators to manage the entire infrastructure easily with its unique features.