Why use a dashboard?

One of the advantages of using Puppet to manage your infrastructure is that it allows you to simplify the management and organization of your nodes and impose order on even the largest pool of resources. This is only one part of the picture, however, and an important element to any kind of system, such as Puppet, is being able to visualize what you manage. A dashboard is shown in the following screenshot:

Puppet now has several dashboards available for use, and most of these offer capabilities above and beyond simply reporting data. Most dashboards can also act as External Node Classifiers (ENCs), and in some cases, can drive actions by integrating with MCollective and even form a key part of the server build process if you use The Foreman. Even without utilizing these features, you will find that a dashboard can offer both your users and you a valuable insight into what is happening within your Puppet-managed infrastructure, and will allow you to interrogate the facts...