Configuration Management and the Cloud

Overview

In this course, you’ll learn how to apply automation to manage fleets of computers. You’ll understand how to automate the process for deploying new computers, keeping those machines updated, managing large-scale changes, and a lot more. We'll discuss managing both physical machines running in our offices and virtual machines running in the Cloud. We'll start by looking into an automation technique called configuration management, which lets you manage the configuration of our computers at scale. Specifically, you'll learn how to use Puppet, the current industry standard for configuration management. We'll look at some simple examples, and then see how we can apply the same concepts to more complex cases. You’ll be a Puppet-master in no time! Later on, you'll expand your automation skills by understanding how to use the Cloud to help scale your infrastructure. You'll check out some best practices for handling hundreds of virtual machines running in the Cloud and troubleshooting them when things don't go according to plan.