DEVOPSdigest

Chef announced availability of Chef Infra 16, adding a number of new features -- including YAML support, Unified Mode, cookbook upgrade automation and expanded platform support.

These new capabilities enhance performance for all users and significantly reduce the time and knowledge required to begin using Chef Infra.

The company also announced end-of-support for pre-Chef 15 versions of Chef Infra, ensuring that customers will have the latest capabilities in addition to the highest levels of support.

Chef Infra allows DevOps and Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) teams to define infrastructure as code, ensuring that configuration policy is flexible, versionable, testable and human-readable. It enables repeatable processes to eliminate drift and provides customizable code for extreme flexibility using simple, declarative definitions for common administrative tasks. It ensures painless migration and management with a single process to manage on-premises and cloud estates.

“As DevOps needs and capabilities continue to scale in global enterprises, more teams and more widely varied types of users are introduced to automation platforms,” said Jim Mercer, Research Director, DevOps, IDC. “Chef Infra 16 offers users at both ends of the spectrum – new entrants and experienced engineers – new capabilities to keep their organizations and their cloud environments running smoothly.”

New features in Chef Infra 16 include:

- YAML support -- Recipes written in YAML enable quick and easy execution, streamlining new user onboarding and easing use for those introduced to Chef via InSpec. A new YAML-to-Ruby converter eases use of helpers, node attributes, looping and other functions.

- Unified Mode -- Significantly improves organizational productivity by enabling IT staff without Ruby coding experience to author cookbooks. Streamlined execution of customized policy makes it easier to extend Chef Infra to address complex problems.

- Cookbook upgrade automation -- Improvements to the Cookstyle utility combine cookbook analysis with auto-correction capabilities to make upgrading legacy cookbooks easier than ever.

- Expanded platform support -- Chef Infra 16 provides ARM (AArch64) support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Amazon Linux 2, CentOS, Ubuntu and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

- Reduced size and increased speed -- Chef Infra 16 consumes up to 33 percent less disk space and improves Windows performance with knife by up to 450 percent.

“Chef 16 is the most powerful version of our Infra Client to date, with strong new capabilities for both new and experienced Chef users,” said John Wyss, VP of Product at Chef. “With Chef Infra Client 16, organizations never have to choose between ease-of-use and versatility. It provides tools tailored for any maturity level or use case, from no-code YAML-based recipes for simple tasks, to fully customized and codified organization-specific policies.”