I am working on the configuration management problem and have been toying with getting bcfg2 working on ESX 3.5. My goal is to have an isolated install that does not require modifying the existing system files or upgrading any packages. My approach to doing this is to create a local Python 2.5 install and install the bcfg2 packages there.
This is just a start, but I thought I would put it out there for anyone who wants to work on something similar.
Installing bcfg2 on ESX 3.5 v 0.00001
I am not very happy with the landscape of configuration management software out there for VMware ESX server. I am investigating using projects such as Bcfg2 to administer my servers. I am working with Bcfg2 because I do not have a lot of experience with these types of software and I am interested in learning more about Python.
Of course these types of packages fail when you look at ESX 3i, but I am not convinced that I will be an early adopter of that platform. I have tried to automate a few things with the VI SDK, but I am having trouble finding all of the information that I want to audit.
If anyone knows about a good CM solution for ESX please let me know.
I have been working on methods to benchmark the Windows infrastructure team at work and I have not been finding much luck finding existing metrics. I was not too happy with the last Gartner review of our IT department, but perhaps that is all that is out there. I have developed some thoughts on the matter and once I am fairly certain they make sense I will post them here.
I have come across a pretty interesting book on measuring business processes. It is How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business. The book walks you through quantitative decision making and how to do this with things that you might have previously thought were immeasurable.