Why is it called automation?
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
Likewise, in a factory that is fully automated thing will start and stop automatically. Things will happen automatically all the time. Not magically because there is obviously code behind it.
If a person would have to press a button each time something has to happen it would not be an automated factory.
Right, but again, just like Ansible or Salt. You seem to be arguing that they are automation with each example.
And that factory is run by.... just a script. That's what does that automation there.
No, it's not the script per se that makes it automated. It's the behavior of the system.
When you have set up ansible for instance you still don't have any automation anywhere. And you have nowhere to define automatic behaviors or responses.FFS no shit.
Because that is what the Automation Engineer is doing. Settingup Ansible.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
No, it's not the script per se that makes it automated.
Do you agree that a script will produce the same result on different pieces of hardware that are running the same software components, repeatedly?
If so, then you must agree that a script automates a process of some type. Install these pieces of software, configure these printers, do XY and Z.
A script automates <something>.
And by automate, it's installing or doing whatever you have the script configured to do.
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It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
No, it's not the script per se that makes it automated.
Do you agree that a script will produce the same result on different pieces of hardware that are running the same software components, repeatedly?
If so, then you must agree that a script automates a process of some type. Install these pieces of software, configure these printers, do XY and Z.
A script automates <something>.
And by automate, it's installing or doing whatever you have the script configured to do.
But a script doesn't just "come into existence" a script has to be created by an automation engineer. I was actually just wearing my AE hat about an hour ago.
Ansible/Salt etc are an AE's workshop, it's where they create the scripts that they want to be run in the environment.
You can have a building with machines in it, but unless the AE sets those machines up to be automated, they'd just be pieces of machinery sitting there waiting to do something.
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@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases. -
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would keep doing this, adding VMs, as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would do keep doing this adding VMs as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
Of course not. FFS
That is the AEs job.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would do keep doing this adding VMs as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
Of course not. FFS
That is the AEs job.
No, you misread that.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would do keep doing this adding VMs as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
That is one level of automation. The script/process that monitors and issues the command to create/destroy.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would keep doing this, adding VMs, as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
But it is a totally different level of automaiton that configures and sets up the instance itself. That is the process/script being called by the process/script that monitors.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would keep doing this, adding VMs, as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
And that's what it does.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
But they don't do nothing on their own.
They do everything on their own.
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@JaredBusch said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would keep doing this, adding VMs, as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
But it is a totally different level of automaiton that configures and sets up the instance itself. That is the process/script being called by the process/script that monitors.
Right either the automation is inside these tools, or they automate another tool. But the end result is end to end automation.
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@JaredBusch said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@bnrstnr said in Why is it called automation?:
It seems like he's thinking about automation as, say, load balancing. Two servers responding to whatever variables on their own.
Which Ansible and Salt will do
That's one of their use cases.But they don't do nothing on their own. If you could define in Ansible that you wanted it to automatically install a new webserver VM when the load on the current VMs are over 60% for 10 minutes and change a load balancer to start using the new host. And it would keep doing this, adding VMs, as long as it is needed and then when load is under say 10% for an hour it would go destroy the VMs one by one. That would be automation.
But it is a totally different level of automaiton that configures and sets up the instance itself. That is the process/script being called by the process/script that monitors.
If the tools were really automation tools they would have all this and much more.
Ansible is like an actuator. Something that makes another thing move, turn, open, close etc.
With Ansible as an example, you can define the state of a system and when you run the script it will put the system in that state by installing, removing, changing files, running commands etc.That's great but it lacks the automation parts that makes things automatic. It lacks what is called a control system, which is where you define behaviors. X will happen when situation Y happens.
You could cobble that part together with scripts just like you could do the actuator part without ansible and just scripts. And you could cobble together fetching inputs from the systems which is what you will base decisions on. For it to be called an automation tool you would really need all these components inside and they are not there.
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@Pete-S
The product automation but they need heck a lot of manual labor.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
You could cobble that part together with scripts just like you could do the actuator part without ansible and just scripts. And you could cobble together fetching inputs from the systems which is what you will base decisions on. For it to be called an automation tool you would really need all these components inside and they are not there.
But those parts already exist in the systems that Salt or Ansible automate. Salt is automation, it just isn't the "automation of absolutely everything, even things that it is automating." You want it to replace all of the automation, all of the way down the stack and that isn't feasible or logical. It just doesn't make sense. Nor does it apply in any other situation.
In your factor, there is no single automation tool that does all of the automation, each piece has its own automation and some automation tooling controls the whole. Nothing complex like this is automated by one thing.
There is no logical end to this train of thought. If automating other automation isn't automation, then you'd have to write a singular OS with built in in-kernal automation and limit everything you do to that one system. The moment you want something external to automate something internal you have automation " in pieces" simply by definition.
So within the confines of automation, these tools are complete automation.
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@Emad-R said in Why is it called automation?:
@Pete-S
The product automation but they need heck a lot of manual labor.
To define, but not as much as a factory needs
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Another important concept that applies to factories too is that "total automation" is essentially never possible. No factory, none, no automation anywhere of any kind, is absolutely complete. A human always comes into things somewhere. Maybe very little, maybe very late in the process, but always somewhere.
Just because everything imaginably can't be auomated doesn't mean that the parts that are automated aren't. It's not an all or nothing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
Another important concept that applies to factories too is that "total automation" is essentially never possible. No factory, none, no automation anywhere of any kind, is absolutely complete. A human always comes into things somewhere. Maybe very little, maybe very late in the process, but always somewhere.
Just because everything imaginably can't be auomated doesn't mean that the parts that are automated aren't. It's not an all or nothing.
I already made that argument with him when he said a car will automatically shift up or down. Which sure, if it has an automatic transmission and the driver of the vehicle accelerates or slows down.
That driver could even be automated but that it still has to apply an action against something, to have an output.
"Oh shit person in the road, BRAKE".
A person would see with their eyes, and respond by slamming on the brakes. A self driving vehicle would do the similar.
It's all due to outside factors from the automation bit.
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So let's take the simplest example - installing a package of curl. This is "out of the box" automated with Salt, for example. You need do nothing, once Salt is set up, you just need to let the system know that you want curl installed somewhere. The automation handles the rest. It's not automated (out of the box) the decision of what to automate, it just has an empty automation framework. But it is so complete, that all you need to do is specify what package and where it would go, and the systems are fully automated from there. You never need to log into the system in question. The automation is literally 100% within the scope of the task being automated. And it goes far beyond just automating the task out of the box, it also automates the monitoring and repair of it.
That someone needs to specify what to automate is a given, there can never be an exception to that. Automation conceptually depends on being initiated. Beyond that, the automation is complete. So there can be no question, Salt (and the others) absolutely are automation in every conceivable way.
They can't be used to automate a factory, but just because they automate X and not Y, doesn't make them not automation.
