A big traditional problem in operations has been ensuring that the different servers maintain a proper configuration. When you have a fleet of servers, deploying a service and keeping them properly configured is not a straightforward task.
For this chapter, we will use configuration as a way of describing a service and all the required configuration to run it in production. This includes the particular version of the service, but also things such as the underlying infrastructure (OS version, number of servers, and so on) or packages and configuration of the dependent services (load balancers, third-party libraries, and so on).
Configuration management will, therefore, be the way to make changes to that.
Configuration management will, therefore, be the way to make changes to that.
Keeping configuration on track in all servers is challenging as the infrastructure grows. The most common change is to deploy a new version...