Sign up to save tools and stay up to date with the latest in AI
bg
bg
1

CFEngine’s Star Trek and AI origins - Mark Burgess - Medium

Mar 26, 2024 - mark-burgess-oslo-mb.medium.com
The article is a reflection on the 30-year journey of CFEngine, a configuration management tool, by its creator Mark Burgess. He discusses the evolution of the tool, its initial conception at the University of Oslo in 1993, and its growth and adoption in the IT world. Burgess also talks about the competition from Puppet and Chef, and the eventual commercialization of CFEngine. He highlights the tool's unique features, such as its sophisticated automated editing for files and its promise-based approach to configuration management. Despite the rise of newer tools, Burgess asserts that CFEngine is still relevant and powerful, and has influenced modern systems like Kubernetes.

Burgess also shares his vision for CFEngine as a tool for knowledge management, with features for machine learning and semantic networks. However, he expresses disappointment that these features were removed after the company took on venture funding. He concludes by noting that while there have been significant advancements in IT hardware over the past 20 years, progress in system automation has been slower. He believes that CFEngine's principles and capabilities still hold value in the current IT landscape.

Key takeaways:

  • CFEngine, a configuration management tool, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
  • CFEngine was designed before the age of virtual machines and cloud computing, and its principles are still applicable to much of the IT world today.
  • CFEngine was designed to handle diversity and variability in IT systems, putting user needs ahead of limitations imposed for managerial convenience.
  • Despite the emergence of new tools like Puppet and Chef, CFEngine is still widely used and continues to evolve, with its principles being incorporated into modern systems like Kubernetes.
View Full Article

Comments (0)

Be the first to comment!