Chef Automate (First 10 nodes free)
Chef | 1.8.85Linux/Unix, CentOS 7.2 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
The scalability and technical support are very good
We use it for integration management.
What is most valuable?
The community.
What needs improvement?
The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable most of the time. There hasn't been any downtime.
We did not go with the traditional architecture, so we decided to use the AWS systems by decoupling the traditional architecture.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the product is quite nice. We have deployed it across six to seven organizations.
How is customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The integration and configuration in our AWS environment is very good.
It works well with most operation management systems, and where it doesn't, we upgrade the system.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried Ansible and Jenkins. However, because we use Terraform in our products, these weren't the most fitting solutions. Chef was the best solution for helping us build our infrastructure.
What other advice do I have?
Find use cases and do your research.
- Leave a Comment |
- Mark review as helpful
Great for configuration management and integration, especially in AWS
We use it for training.
How has it helped my organization?
All the Chef enthusiasts who come to us to learn and train, improve their skillsets to get jobs. It's a really easy product in AWS. It's easy to teach and easy to understand.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby.
Regarding integration and configuration of the product, they're pretty manageable. The layers are really easy to configure.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's working great. It's stable. We try to produce real-world scenarios with the students as much as possible.
How was the initial setup?
It's a really easy product in AWS. It's easy to teach and easy to understand.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We considered Puppet and Ansible. We went with Chef because Chef uses Ruby and Ruby is pretty popular right now.
What other advice do I have?
Compare it to the other services that you use.
Simple, easy to use, more versatile, can handle a hundred thousand servers at the same time
Our primary use case of this solution is for the orchestration of the service deployment, and integrations. Earlier, we had it on-prem but now it's totally on AWS cloud. AWS cloud is easier to use, and changing and refitting the architecture solutions is very easy.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time.
We started using the AWS services, for example, Opsware. Whatever recipes we have written in SAP, we can use the same recipe in Opsware. Moving from one to the other is almost no work.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features for us would be the writing of the recipes. Any business can write the recipe based on their deployment, it's not like we have to follow a specific path.
AWS Marketplace gives you a sense of authentic products. Since AWS does its own checks on the marketplace products it's kind of a sense of relief that something will not be problematic.
What needs improvement?
I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's quite stable, we hardly see surprises. Its deployment is very smooth.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have many applications and each one has its own cluster of the servers. We have more than a hundred servers and a couple of clusters which is a big environment. We use SAP and they help us.
How is customer service and technical support?
If we need technical support we raise an AWS ticket and someone from the technical support team helps us. If we hit a roadblock we have to go out beyond AWS support which is fine.
Which solutions did we use previously?
The reason that we chose this solution is because it's more effective and it gives us the ability to do the customization that we would like to do. It's also more versatile in the way that we can deploy using this tool, not only on Cloud but at the same time on-prem as well. It's more powerful.
What was our ROI?
We see ROI from saving a lot of time and that our deliveries are now on time. Also, we save the amount of time we take to deploy and make any changes in the deployment and in expediting service. The amount of time invested there is less which in turn we can invest in some other work. So our ROI is speed.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a nine because it's simple, easy to use, more versatile, and most importantly, it can handle the hundred thousand servers at the same time very easily and almost in no time.
It is simple, easy to use, and versatile
It is for orchestrating our servers and deployments to do integrations.
How has it helped my organization?
Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy. If you have thousand of servers, you can easily deploy them in a minimum amount of time. You can deploy applications or any type of announcements in a reduced amount of time.
What is most valuable?
Writing recipes, which is great. Any business can write a recipe based on their deployment. We do not have to follow a path.
It is simple, easy to use, and versatile. The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints.
What needs improvement?
Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is quite stable. We hardly experience any surprises. Its deployment is very smooth.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have many applications and each is having its own cluster of the service. We have more than a 100 servers and a couple of clusters. That is a big environment.
How is customer service and technical support?
If we need help, we raise an AWS ticket. Then, the AWS support helps us with the technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The integration and configuration of this product in our AWS environment was simple.
What was our ROI?
We are saving a lot our delivery time and on te amount of the time that we deploy. We used to make changes during the deployment. So, the amount of time invested there is less, which in turn, we can invest in some other work. Therefore, our ROI is quick, though it does depend on the size of your service.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was a good place to go to purchase this product because you receive a sense of authenticity with the products. Since AWS has its own checks on AWS Marketplace products, there is sense of relief that the product will not be problematic.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at other product like Puppet. We are also using Ansible. However, Chef is the market leader, so we went with that.
Chef is more effective. It provides the hooks, so we can do customization. The product is more versatile. For example, we can deploy using this tool, not only with cloud, but simultaneously on-premise. So, it is quite powerful.
What other advice do I have?
If someone would like to go for a heavy cluster, this is a product they can trust for deployment, since it is smooth. Even though customization is needed, they can create their own custom recipe, which in other products, I would say is partially there and also depends on the different type of applications.
We have had less production issues since using it to automate our provisioning
We use it for provisioning Adobe Experience Manager web application environments.
How has it helped my organization?
It has given us more resiliency in all the stuff we now manage with Chef, which was previously sort of manually maintained. Now, we are able to drive all of that through version control and automation, which is a lot faster.
What is most valuable?
It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves.
What needs improvement?
There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based. However, it is just a different product and requires you to acclimate yourself, just like any other product would.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had no stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability works. We haven't scaled it too high. We have a few different servers in different places.
We have been looking into the high availability offering, but we haven't actually stood it up yet. We are hopeful about it though.
How is customer service and technical support?
We have had to open a few Amazon support tickets. However, they have typically not been Chef-related, they have been Amazon service-related.
The technical support has been great. Our tickets have all been closed out quickly.
Which solutions did we use previously?
Our environments used to be on-premise, then we were moving them into the cloud. Since they were big and complicated, we decided we needed a manageable provisioning system instead of doing it by hand every time.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI. It has decreased a lot of man-hours that we were previously spending doing stuff which we now manage with Chef. It has decreased when we have a production issue, since we are able to fix it faster. We also have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We considered Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and homegrown solutions. We had a couple people who used to use Ansible and some people who had previously used Chef. I think we just settled on Chef after trying it because we liked that it was Ruby-based, and there were a lot of community cookbooks already. This lined up parallel with what we wanted to be doing.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Chef. It is very user-friendly. There are a lot of community resources which make it easy to onboard. It also plays nicely with existing automation tools and other things which you are probably already using.
Chef works with Adobe Experience Manager, Terraform, and AWS CLI tools. We have been pleased with the integration.
When you are running a large cluster with hybrid applications, it can be very instrumental in making sure that they are running in sync
We use it for deployment of applications. It is a tool that you can use on the back-end for deploying architectures.
I have used the product for a couple years. I used to work for an online data center, and we used Chef for a lot of the tools and appointments.
How has it helped my organization?
When you are running a large cluster with hybrid applications, it can be very instrumental in making sure that they are running in sync. The tools it offers for running in environments has made it a good solution to use.
What is most valuable?
Its most valuable feature is automation.
What needs improvement?
Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We put quite a lot of stress on it, especially in our larger environments.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. I have used it for several environments, from small (a couple of servers) to large clusters more than 50 servers).
What was our ROI?
We have seen a lot of ROI. Our customers really enjoy the tool. We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market.
The AWS platform is solid. With the technologies that they offer, it makes it easy to integrate. When you are building environments and your able to integrate everything together, this is good thing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at a combination of open source and other paid solutions. It was hard because Chef offered many options that others didn't, so it wasn't a one-to-one comparison.
Chef had better functionality, flexibility, and price. It is a clean product that is easy to work with and our customers like the product.
What other advice do I have?
It works well. I would highly recommend it.
It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for.
The product works well with VMware environments.
It integrates with many products in ILT and data management areas with each of them providing cloud computing
I have used in my current company for three years, and with other clients for more than ten years.
How has it helped my organization?
My clients are happy, which is the most important thing.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is automation.
What needs improvement?
The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have some issues in Brazilian region with stability. However, in US region, we have no issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is pretty good. We have nothing to complain about, except the price.
How is customer service and technical support?
I would rate the technical support as a ten out of ten.
Amazon is a great partner.
How was the initial setup?
The integration and configuration are pretty good in the AWS environment. The problems are usually on our side, not on AWS' side.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I don't like some of the products offered by VMware. I like the automation offered by Chef and Puppet.
We chose Chef because some clients have some legacy systems and decided to work with them. We don't really like work with VMs, but when we have to, we use Puppet.
What other advice do I have?
I have used the on-premise and AWS versions. I prefer the AWS for troubleshooting.
Its recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments. However, they need to provide better functionalities when creating recipes.
Our primary use case is having the properties set up across the servers. We have Chef recipes deployed and configured across our servers, so we get the same type of replication across our servers and environments.
We are using the on-premise version. We have our applications already set up for on-premise. We are using Chef and preparing it for CI/CD and other properties. Now, we are planning ahead and will use the AWS service too.
How has it helped my organization?
Earlier, we used to do everything manually, such as configuring the servers across different environments. Using Chef and Puppet, we can automate our CI/CD process with reduced effort from our DevOps team.
What is most valuable?
Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments.
What needs improvement?
They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes.
We would also like more recipes. This is key for us.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We do put a lot of stress on it from the QA, staging, and servers. We have a CI/CD pipeline continuously running as the developer commits the code to Chef and Puppet, which are always up and running.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is working well for our organization.
How is customer service and technical support?
As a developer, I don't use the technical support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are still in the process of evaluating Chef Compute. Currently, we use Chef and Puppet. Soon, we will probably be purchasing it from AWS Marketplace.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were already using Chef and Puppet for most of our DevOps. These were our only choices.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend using Chef.
Chef integrates and configures well with AWS and other products. We use Chef and Puppet together. We are also using Splunk for log traces. We just started using Chef with AWS for easy to use containers. AWS is great for storage, CloudFormation, and CloudFrond CDN.
A Great Configuration Management tool
What do you like best about the product?
- Great centralized features: data bags (central data storage), encrypted data bags, restricting script (cookbook) version on given nodes...etc.
- Amazing ruby-based syntax. This what makes Chef my preferred configuration management tool over other tools that use their own DSL. You can always use Ruby directly for complex tasks
- Open source: Chef has an open source version that does not lack important features
- Ability to test your Chef scripts (recipes and cookbooks) using automated InSpec tests
- Amazing ruby-based syntax. This what makes Chef my preferred configuration management tool over other tools that use their own DSL. You can always use Ruby directly for complex tasks
- Open source: Chef has an open source version that does not lack important features
- Ability to test your Chef scripts (recipes and cookbooks) using automated InSpec tests
What do you dislike about the product?
- There is some learning curve involved, but it's worth it
- It might be an overkill for simple automations
- It might be an overkill for simple automations
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Automates compute nodes configuration, so solves problems like: environment inconsistencies, speed up deploying new nodes, ..etc
Cooking with infrastructure as code
What do you like best about the product?
Once you're familiar with Chef, it's a very powerful tool for ensuring that your servers are all provisioned in the exact same way, and committing those choices to source control. There is a fairly active open source, and a lot of community cookbooks already exist for common tasks.
What do you dislike about the product?
Reasonably challenging to get up and running with, especially if you aren't coming from a Ruby background. The documentation lags somewhat and I occasionally found myself digging into source code to understand a behavior.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Automating and standardizing server configuration. Reducing the number of errors that arise from server configuration drift.
showing 41 - 50