Chef (aka Progress Chef) is a configuration administration software that helps organizations streamline their workflows and obtain consistency and scalability by way of numerous infrastructure automation options. Is Chef the proper selection for automating your IT infrastructure administration? Hold studying to seek out out, as we’ll break down Chef by way of its options, pricing, professionals, and cons. We may also reveal a few of the prime Chef options so you’ve choices when purchasing round for the perfect configuration administration software.
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Overview of Chef configuration administration software
Chef was initially launched in 2009 by Adam Jacob. He created the software to beat the obstacles related to scaling and automating the administration of complicated infrastructure and utility configurations. By specializing in infrastructure as code and automating configuration administration, Chef was capable of garner fairly the next within the DevOps neighborhood through the years.
In 2020, Progress acquired Chef. After the merger, the configuration administration software was formally renamed Progress Chef. It now has a variety of shoppers, together with DevOps groups, software program builders, system directors, cloud and infrastructure engineers, IT operations groups, and extra. Progress Chef serves organizations of all sizes and industries trying to automate the configuration administration of their purposes and infrastructure.
Options of Chef configuration administration software
The next options are a few of the the explanation why Progress Chef has change into such a preferred configuration administration software inside the DevOps neighborhood:
- Infrastructure as code.
- Abstraction of system sources.
- Recipes.
- Cookbooks.
- Giant energetic neighborhood.
- Integrations.
Chef makes use of infrastructure as code, which permits groups to make use of human-readable codecs when describing desired system states. This promotes configuration repeatability, consistency, and model management. Chef additionally has system useful resource abstraction, which permits the software to supply platform-agnostic infrastructure administration. With Chef, you get help for numerous cloud platforms and working techniques.
True to its identify, Chef makes use of recipes and cookbooks. Recipes outline particular actions or configurations, whereas cookbooks function recipe collections. With Chef’s cookbooks, customers can take pleasure in simplified administration, code reusability, and modularity.
Considered one of Chef’s greatest highlights is its massive, loyal, and energetic neighborhood that has mixed to create an enormous ecosystem of modules, cookbooks, finest practices, and so forth. The Chef Grocery store is the place you will discover loads of pre-build cookbooks to speed up your group’s configuration administration.
Lastly, Progress Chef is very extensible, because it integrates with most of the prime DevOps instruments for added performance. Chef integrates with fashionable repositories like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, CI/CD instruments like Jenkins and CircleCI, provisioning instruments like Packer, Vagrant, and Vault, and rather more.
Chef configuration administration software pricing
Progress Chef affords two main avenues for buying its infrastructure configuration administration product. The primary is to purchase instantly from Progress Chef, selecting between on-premise and SaaS choices. To take action, you will want to contact the corporate to get a customized quote that matches your group’s wants. The advantages of taking this direct route are you could entry customizable bundles and providers and versatile pricing whereas having help from devoted buyer success and gross sales groups.
The second buying choice is to purchase Progress Chef by way of marketplaces. This provides you the advantages of direct buying, plus perks like quicker procurement and simpler deployment. Take this route, and you should buy Progress Chef from the AWS Market or the Azure Market.
Purchase Chef from the AWS Market, and you’ve got two choices:
- Chef BYOL: Deliver your individual Chef license and pay for the compute time on AWS.
- Chef on AWS Market: Chef put in in your AWS account as a subscription. Begins at $0.20 per hour or $189 per 12 months for software program and utilization charges.
Purchase Chef on the Azure Market, and you’ve got three choices:
- BYOL: Deliver your individual license and pay for compute time on Azure.
- 2-Hour Take a look at Drive: A free, two-hour trial on Azure.
- Customized Personal Provide: Buy Chef from Azure by way of a particular provide catered to your distinctive wants.
Chef configuration administration software professionals
The next professionals are a few of the greatest the explanation why Progress Chef is such a preferred infrastructure administration software:
- Giant neighborhood.
- Flexibility.
- Knife software.
- Geared towards complicated duties.
When you favor a configuration administration software with a big following that might come in useful if you want help and sources, you will see that that with Progress Chef. Its many customers which have been round via the years may help freshmen get acclimated with Chef and repair any issues as they come up. Chef additionally shines by way of flexibility. Because it adheres to a code-driven strategy, Chef affords enhanced flexibility and provides you extra management over your configurations.
Chef’s Knife software is one other professional value mentioning. The command-line software interacts with the Chef server, permitting customers to add cookbooks, handle environments and cloud sources, and extra. Knife may save the day on the subject of taking a few of the tediousness out of set up. Lastly, Progress Chef is a really superior configuration administration software that may deal with even probably the most complicated duties, not like a few of its rivals, that are extra geared towards tackling the fundamentals.
Chef configuration administration software cons
Is Chef the right infrastructure administration software? No, because it does have some disadvantages or cons, resembling:
- Steep studying curve.
- Complexity.
- Programming expertise wanted.
- Worth.
Chef is a strong configuration administration software, however to unleash that energy, you’ll have to take time to learn to use it. Progress Chef is sort of complicated, so even skilled professionals will discover the educational curve steep. And even after you have practiced with it, Chef can nonetheless be difficult to make use of.
Newbies with out programming expertise will discover Chef past their vary, because it was designed for seasoned programmers. When you lack programming expertise, it is best to take a Ruby course earlier than giving Chef a attempt. And when you determine to attempt it, be ready to pay a premium, as Progress Chef can get expensive for smaller groups with minimal budgets. Bigger organizations with extra capital might not have that problem.
Alternate options to Chef configuration administration software
Progress Chef is a versatile configuration administration software with a big neighborhood. And it has loads of options and energy to assist customers full the hardest duties. Nevertheless, if you end up searching for Chef options as a result of software’s steep studying curve, complexity, and worth, listed below are a few of your finest bets.
Ansible
Ansible is the perfect Chef different for these searching for a easy configuration administration answer. Newbies and small to medium-sized groups ought to look into Ansible for its minimal adoption time and seamless setup.
You possibly can study extra about Ansible’s options and its customized pricing choices right here.
Puppet
Puppet is one other Chef different that provides configuration administration. Select Puppet when you favor a well-rounded person interface and strong reporting capabilities and need a robust neighborhood for potential help when wanted, much like Chef’s. Puppet affords customized pricing.
Be taught extra in regards to the configuration software’s options.
Terraform
Terraform is one other fashionable DevOps and infrastructure automation software. The open-source Chef different excels in all cloud-based environments and is finest suited to organizations searching for a powerful cloud infrastructure administration answer. Terraform can be a correct selection for groups with builders who’re most conversant in the Go language and wish to work with fashionable instruments like Packer or Docker. Since Terraform is open supply, the software is free to make use of.
Be taught extra about Terraform.
Last ideas on Chef configuration administration software
Progress Chef has many professionals in its favor that make it a strong choose as a configuration administration software. It’s versatile, affords loads of management over configurations, comes with a big neighborhood for help, and is able to dealing with complicated duties. Nevertheless, since some might discover Chef too complicated with a steep studying curve and excessive worth, don’t hesitate to take a better have a look at a few of its options listed above, as Ansible, Puppet, or Terraform could also be higher matches.
