Preface

This book is a step-by-step guide to get started with Puppet development, and use Puppet modules as the building blocks to deploy production-ready application clusters in the virtual environment.

The journey begins with the installation of the development environment on the VirtualBox hypervisor and the installation of the Puppet Learning VM that will be used platforms to test and develop Puppet modules.

You will learn how to manage virtual machines and snapshots effectively and enhance the developer's experience with advanced VirtualBox features.

Once the development environment is up and running, this book will focus on Puppet module development in detail. You will be guided through the process of how to utilize the existing modules that are available in the public module repository, write your own modules, and use modules to deploy a real-world web application that includes features such as monitoring and load balancing. When an application cluster is deployed, the focus shifts to how to scale the environment and turn the static configuration into a dynamic one through stored configurations and PuppetDB. The latter part of the book will provide you with practical advice on Puppet troubleshooting, and how to manage your environment with a wealth of features provided by the Puppet Enterprise Console. Starting from the basics, this step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of becoming the master of your own Puppets.