AWS has certainly gained a lot of popularity as it is one of the best cloud computing services across the world. Many of its peers are doing good too but the way AWS gained acceptance and popularity is amazing. There are many AWS professional services consultants across the world providing services to the clients and managing their business infrastructure in the best way possible through the cloud. Cost-effectiveness, durability, scalability, robust infrastructure are some of the major reasons why business giants go for AWS rather than any other managed services providers.
It is extremely important to know that the durable and scalable cloud platform AWS has various tools that can handle system and application-level deployments so that consistency, predictability, and integrity across multiple platforms can be ensured. Deployments of AWS tools enhance development, reduces errors and failures rates, and leads to faster recovery. In this article, we will be discussing the top 5 AWS deployment tools that are a part of the Amazon ecosystem and have a concrete integration with the Amazon cloud.
1. Chef
One of the widely used and accepted deployment tools used across different and varied business infrastructures is Chef. Licensed under the Apache Open Source license, Chef was introduced in the year 2009 and developed in Ruby. There are three versions in which Chef is available which are Hosted Chef, Private Chef, and the open-source version.
The three components which comprise Chef are Master server, Client Nodes, and Workstation. The master server is a server that acts as a hub that is available to every hub. Configuration machines like cookbooks, policies, and recipes are defined in the development machine called Workstation. All the infrastructure automation is performed and managed by the system called Nodes.
Some of the operational tasks such as creating, monitoring, and deleting instances become a nightmare for the system admins. Apart from that configuring instances with storage, services, firewalls, the software is another big challenge for the admin. All these challenges are very well handled by Chef and make the business smooth.
2. Puppet
Puppet, along with Chef is another widely used deployment and configuration management tool which is used by businesses of all sizes.
Puppet was first launched under the GPL license which was a free version introduced in the year 2005 but later on, it moved to Apache. Just like Chef, Puppet is also designed in Ruby and comes in two variants namely Puppet Enterprise and Puppet Open source. While Puppet Enterprise is free up to 10 nodes, the open-source variant is completely free for its customers.
When it comes to working and functions, Puppet is similar to Chef in architecture and working. It works on a client-server model where the Puppet agent has to be installed on the managed nodes while the centralized administration happens on the Puppet server also called a master server. I order to fetch the latest configuration, the puppet client connects with the puppet server periodically and after the configuration is fetched, it is executed on the client while the results are sent back to the puppet server
3. Ansible
Ansible was released in the year 2012 and is one of the best AWS deployment and managed services tools available in the market currently that supports the AWS cloud platform. It is one of the youngest and fastest-growing deployment tools in the market. Exactly opposite to Chef and Puppet, Ansible does not work on a client-server architecture. This means that apart from the regular Python packages, it does not require any client package installation on client nodes. Client nodes on Ansible are managed over SSH protocol and the absence of client-server architecture which is also known as agentless architecture is the reason why the upgrade process becomes extremely simple and easy to implement
Ansible comes into variants namely Ansible Tower which is a paid version and Ansible open-source which is a free version. Ansible is designed in Python and uses YAML syntax for its configuration files which are also known as playbooks. Since YAML is very easy to use, it becomes a major advantage to implement Ansible as compared to other tools
4. AWS ELastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is one of the simplest, fastest, and maintenance-free deployment tools that you must consider for your business. Beanstalk is provided by AWS free of cost and you only have to pay for the resources that are provided by the beanstalk environment. Applications written in different programming languages like Java, Python, Node.js, Ruby, .NET, PHP, etc can be deployed easily in beanstalk and it has native support for web and application servers like Tomcat, Apache, IIS, Nginx, etc.
One of the best features of the beanstalk is its quick deployment feature where uploading applications to beanstalk starts the deployment process and can be rolled back to previous versions in case of any failures. Apart from that, integration with other AWS services like CloudWatch, RDS, Elastic Load Balancer ETC is very easy and seamless. In case of any issues, health monitoring of applications can be done using Cloudwatch and SNS notification. Even without logging into the instances, system and application logs can be easily accessed.
5. AWS CodeDeploy
AWS Code Deploy is one of the best AWS deployment tools available in the market and also the simplest code deployment service available currently in the market. There are a lot of amazing features of this tool that will surely make you think twice before opting for any other tools. Managed IT services Corona offers AWS code deploy in its managed services and you must try it once for your business.
With thousands of deployment targets, this tool enables deployment across different environments. Also, existing configuration management tools like Puppet, Chef, Ansibleetc can be very well integrated with AWS code deploy. Apart from management tools, it can be integrated with version control tools as well as with continuous integration tools. There is a reporting feature available for your deployment process which is provided by Code deploy. You can also execute and monitor the whole deployment process which makes everything very easy and fruitful.
The tools in this list are not only easy to learn, but they also offer a variety of features that help you manage your infrastructure. For example, Chef and Ansible have the capability for continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD). These capabilities can make it easier to scale out deployments as well as keep track of versions across multiple environments. Beyond CI/CD, Puppet is an excellent choice if you’re looking for something with a little more depth when managing large-scale infrastructures. What do you think? Which tool would be best suited for your needs?
