Datacenter Management Software

[Levi Pearson]

Mike Lovell <toelovell at gmail.com> writes:

> 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?

This sounds a lot like what Clusterworx from Linux Networx does.  I
didn't use it a whole lot while I worked there, but I know it does
provide a lot of the features you're wanting.  It does provisioning,
image configuration management (including version control), system
monitoring, etc.  It does the dhcp/PXE booting and provisioning that
you want, too.

I have no idea how much it costs, but I know it's not cheap, and I
think it's per-server or per-CPU licensed.  It's pretty slick, though.
See http://lnxi.com/content_display.jsp?top=32&mid=14839 if you're
interested in it.

                --Levi