Tag: Automation

By mfitzgerald

What is Jenkins?

Jenkins is an open-source software written in Java and Scala. This software allows users the ability to automate almost any task and, it saves significant time that can be better utilized addressing other issues. When automating tasks with Jenkins, users can optimize their workflow by quickly automating the jobs that servers cannot do themselves. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Jenkins on CentOS 8. We will also explore what its purpose is and share several benefits that Jenkins offers. We will then configure it to run on our CentOS 8 server.

Containers are the future of application development and hosting. They enable DevOps, developers, and system administrators to build, test, deploy, and maintain applications quickly, securely, and efficiently. Tools built around the containerization concept provide simple solutions for basic web applications. These advanced granular configuration options provide the control many enterprise applications may need. 

What is Rancher K3s?

K3s is an official Cloud Native Computing Foundation sandbox project that brings a lightweight, fully compliant Kubernetes distribution designed for lower resource production models like remote locations or on an IoT device. When used in conjunction with Rancher, K3s can easily be managed from within the Rancher orchestration platform.

Ansible is an open-source tool that uses playbooks to enable configuration management, software provisioning, and application deployment. It is primarily written in Python and was released in 2012. Ever since then, it has saved countless hours of often menial work of deploying and maintaining IT infrastructure. Overall, Ansible is very consistent, secure, reliable, and it requires a minimal learning curve. Simply put, Ansible is a powerful tool for automating apps and infrastructure. You can read more about general Ansible information in our recently published article.

Introduction: What is IaC?

Today we will become acquainted with a concept known as Infrastructure as Code. The idea of Infrastructure as Code is becoming more and more popular today. IaC is a method used to manage and provision a data center via defined machine-readable files instead of physical hardware configuration or other interactive configuration tools. This article will share what it is used for, why it is important, and why businesses strive to utilize this platform to achieve a desired set of results. It is essential to understand that we will consider both the theoretical and practical parts of IaC.

What is Apache Bench? 

Apache Bench is a benchmarking tool that is included with the Apache web server software. It is designed to provide an impression of how our Apache installation will perform under different circumstances. Specifically, it shows us how many requests per second our Apache installation can serve.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of various tools, practices, and ideals that combine software development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops) into a single unifying force. It allows for better collaboration between developers, operations teams, system administrators, and system engineers. Their streamlined goal is to continually provide a high-value software product to the customer at high speed while monitoring and improving the overall process than using traditional software and infrastructure management. 

The web-based Kubernetes console is an interface that provides information about the state of the Kubernetes cluster. The dashboard is also used for deploying containerized applications as well as for general cluster resource management. Traditionally, kubectl is primarily used in the terminal for nearly all cluster related tasks. Still, it is useful to have a visual representation of our cluster in a user-friendly interface. To install the dashboard, kubectl needs to be installed and running on the server.

What is Kubernetes?

In this article, we review what Kubernetes and Kubeadm are, how to install, create a cluster, and set up worker nodes using Kubeadm. If you are not yet familiar with Kubernetes, we recommend reading our article on the fundamental basics of Kubernetes.