Go Faster - More SaltStack automation for Google Cloud Platform
Monday, April 28, 2014
SaltStack makes software to automate cloud factories, Internet assembly lines and Web-scale IT. It is used by thousands of systems administrators, engineers, developers, and data center operators to provide automated control of infrastructure, configuration management, and cloud orchestration. Initially developed to be an extremely fast and scalable systems management platform, Salt is now one of the top five largest and most vibrant open source projects in the world according to GitHub.
It is our inherent biases toward speed and scale that get us really excited about the capabilities of Google Compute Engine. We think the combination of SaltStack and Google Compute Engine can help our customers get their big ideas into production faster while creating a massively scalable platform for future growth, or we can help migrate and manage existing large-scale projects.
SaltStack provides simple and direct integration to Google Compute Engine with native support and no extraneous dependencies. We have been able to take advantage of the full power of the Google Compute Engine API with the ability to modify firewalls and load balancers for example. It is quick and easy to create a SaltStack-managed Google Compute Engine environment.
Salt Cloud architecture:
Here is an example of how to use Salt Cloud to get any-size Google Compute Engine environment effectively “Salted” in about a minute and a half:
In addition to SaltStack Cloud States, SaltStack provides a number of other options for creating virtual machines. They can be managed directly from profiles and the command line, or a more complex SaltStack Cloud Map can be created to control virtual machines in Google Compute Engine. The map file allows for a number of virtual machines to be created and associated with specific profiles.
SaltStack was created to provide really fast and malleable remote execution capabilities. Salt controls large loads of information, and not just dozens but thousands of individual servers in near real time across data centers and cloud environments around the world.
The SaltStack topology is a simple server / client model with all needed functionality built into a single set of daemons. Once a Compute Engine environment is “Salted,” the core functions of SaltStack can be used to control it via:
- remote system commands called in parallel rather than serially;
- a secure and encrypted protocol;
- the smallest and fastest network payloads possible;
- a simple programming interface;
- targeting by hostname and system properties.
The result is a system that can execute commands at high speed on target server groups ranging from one to very many servers. While the default configuration will work with little to no modification, Salt can be fine tuned to meet specific needs. SaltStack is as versatile as it is practical, perfectly suitable for Google Compute Engine.
To see the combination of Google Compute Engine and SaltStack in action, watch this talk from SaltConf14 by Eric Johnson, Google Technical Program Manager:
-Posted by Joseph Hall, Senior Software Engineer, SaltStack
It is our inherent biases toward speed and scale that get us really excited about the capabilities of Google Compute Engine. We think the combination of SaltStack and Google Compute Engine can help our customers get their big ideas into production faster while creating a massively scalable platform for future growth, or we can help migrate and manage existing large-scale projects.
SaltStack provides simple and direct integration to Google Compute Engine with native support and no extraneous dependencies. We have been able to take advantage of the full power of the Google Compute Engine API with the ability to modify firewalls and load balancers for example. It is quick and easy to create a SaltStack-managed Google Compute Engine environment.
Salt Cloud architecture:
Here is an example of how to use Salt Cloud to get any-size Google Compute Engine environment effectively “Salted” in about a minute and a half:
# Note: This example is for /etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/gce.conf
gce-config:
# Set up the Project name and Service Account authorization
#
project: "your_project_name"
service_account_email_address: "123-a5gt@developer.gserviceaccount.com"
service_account_private_key: "/path/to/your/NEW.pem"
# Set up the location of the salt master
#
minion:
master: saltmaster.example.com
# Set up grains information, which will be common for all nodes
# using this provider
grains:
node_type: broker
release: 1.0.1
provider: gce
Once SaltStack is controlling a Compute Engine environment it is time to utilize SaltStack to deploy and control virtual machines in milliseconds while managing application configurations and doing things like continuous code integration and deployment. SaltStack Cloud States can be used to map the Compute Engine environment and apply configuration management and orchestration using the Salt state system for scalable orchestration between nodes. For example, one Salt minion can apply a Salt Highstate to another minion.In addition to SaltStack Cloud States, SaltStack provides a number of other options for creating virtual machines. They can be managed directly from profiles and the command line, or a more complex SaltStack Cloud Map can be created to control virtual machines in Google Compute Engine. The map file allows for a number of virtual machines to be created and associated with specific profiles.
SaltStack was created to provide really fast and malleable remote execution capabilities. Salt controls large loads of information, and not just dozens but thousands of individual servers in near real time across data centers and cloud environments around the world.
The SaltStack topology is a simple server / client model with all needed functionality built into a single set of daemons. Once a Compute Engine environment is “Salted,” the core functions of SaltStack can be used to control it via:
- remote system commands called in parallel rather than serially;
- a secure and encrypted protocol;
- the smallest and fastest network payloads possible;
- a simple programming interface;
- targeting by hostname and system properties.
The result is a system that can execute commands at high speed on target server groups ranging from one to very many servers. While the default configuration will work with little to no modification, Salt can be fine tuned to meet specific needs. SaltStack is as versatile as it is practical, perfectly suitable for Google Compute Engine.
To see the combination of Google Compute Engine and SaltStack in action, watch this talk from SaltConf14 by Eric Johnson, Google Technical Program Manager:
-Posted by Joseph Hall, Senior Software Engineer, SaltStack
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