Datacenter Management Software

[Shane Hathaway]

Mike Lovell wrote:
> I have a question about software for managing LOTS of machines in a 
> datacenter. Here's what my situation is. Currently, I  manage 2 
> datacenters that contain a total of about 400 machines. Plus we are 
> growing at about 25 machines a month and have a few more datacenters on 
> the roadmap. The  operating system is Debian Etch. What I am wanting to 
> do is have a tool that will somewhat automate the process of installing 
> and configuring the software on new machines. I would really like a 
> utility that I can define roles and assign machines to different roles. 
> Also, a hook into dhcp would nice since all of the ip addressing is 
> managed by dhcp and all of the OS installs are done through dhcp and 
> PXE. Do any of you know of any utility out there that does anything like 
> this? I would prefer something that is open source but I can go with a 
> commercial solution. Any thoughts on this?

cfengine, man.  You need cfengine.

http://www.cfengine.org/

Shane