Software Configuration Management : A comparison of Chef, CFEngine and Puppet

Abstract: Configuring services in an ad-hoc way is less than optimal as human error can result in services that fail. Even though scripting offers a solution it does not allow for a uniform deployment of configurations. A possible solution to this problem is the use of software configuration management systems (SCMS) that allow administrators to specify what should be done, and not necessarily how. An implementation is conducted that focuses on the first part of implementing an SCMS to see if a transition to a SCMS governed environment can be worthwhile. Three SCMS will be investigated; Chef, CFEngine and Puppet. The results show that administrators can receive good support from the documentation as documentation of the three SCMS are mostly accurate. The support from the community is affected by region and activity is declining in some cases. Overall it is easy to install an SCMS and special purpose languages are effective for specifying functionality of services.