Systems Automation: Past, Present and Future
summary
Argues configuration management shifts from imperative scripts to promise theory as pioneered by cfengine 25 years ago, says automation must cover whole time scales not just the first five minutes, and warns configuration management as-is is unsustainable. Cites a failed automated firefighting case carrying 2200 tons ammonium nitrate that kills almost 600 to show don’t automate what isn’t understood. Notes container and Kubernetes trends, SaltStack tooling, convergence moving up into the business layer, and prescribes event streams, pattern thinking, and problem-first (not tool-first) design.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Start
- 4:28Easier To Manage Systems Today than It Was 10 Years Ago
- 5:49What Are Tools
- 7:29The Categorical Imperative
- 9:31Declarative Approach
- 9:50Promise Theory
- 15:17Abstraction Has Downsides
- 23:11Complexity Modeling
- 23:44The Time Scale Trap
- 26:29Practical Advice
- 29:07Part Three of the Future
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