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?:
@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.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
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.
But only in response to the driver giving input via the accelerator. If the human stops, the gears shift out and wait. It's not "fully automated" outside of a super limited scope that needs constant human interaction to keep automating. It's dramatically less automated than something like Salt that keeps being automated even after the human has left.
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Of course the self driving car, could do additional or unexpected things, like swerve, accelerate ( when you're gonna hit a deer ) etc.
But it's all due to the programming.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
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.
But only in response to the driver giving input via the accelerator. If the human stops, the gears shift out and wait. It's not "fully automated" outside of a super limited scope that needs constant human interaction to keep automating. It's dramatically less automated than something like Salt that keeps being automated even after the human has left.
Absolutely, he provided the example, I was explaining how it requires human interaction to keep the car in 3rd.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
Of course the self driving car, could do additional or unexpected things, like swerve, accelerate ( when you're gonna hit a deer ) etc.
But it's all due to the programming.
Right, all things that Salt or Ansible do, too. Self driving cars are a good example compared to Salt. Once you tell it where you want to go (or what you want it to do), it can do everything else, even respond to changing conditions. But someone has to decide where you are headed to.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
Of course the self driving car, could do additional or unexpected things, like swerve, accelerate ( when you're gonna hit a deer ) etc.
But it's all due to the programming.
Right, all things that Salt or Ansible do, too. Self driving cars are a good example compared to Salt. Once you tell it where you want to go (or what you want it to do), it can do everything else, even respond to changing conditions. But someone has to decide where you are headed to.
Self-driving cars are continuously controlling the cars behavior while Ansible run once to put one or more systems in a state defined by it's configuration. That's about as far from each other as possible and not at all the same thing. Or do you mean it's the same thing because it's all executed by programs in some form?
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
Of course the self driving car, could do additional or unexpected things, like swerve, accelerate ( when you're gonna hit a deer ) etc.
But it's all due to the programming.
Right, all things that Salt or Ansible do, too. Self driving cars are a good example compared to Salt. Once you tell it where you want to go (or what you want it to do), it can do everything else, even respond to changing conditions. But someone has to decide where you are headed to.
Self-driving cars are continuously controlling the cars behavior while Ansible run once to put one or more systems in a state defined by it's configuration. That's about as far from each other as possible and not at all the same thing. Or do you mean it's the same thing because it's all executed by programs in some form?
Both know the "destination" and adjust and do what is necessary to get to it. Both detect "current state" and "desired state" and control the system to get from point A to point B without human intervention. Where are you perceiving a difference?
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
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.
But only in response to the driver giving input via the accelerator. If the human stops, the gears shift out and wait. It's not "fully automated" outside of a super limited scope that needs constant human interaction to keep automating. It's dramatically less automated than something like Salt that keeps being automated even after the human has left.
Absolutely, he provided the example, I was explaining how it requires human interaction to keep the car in 3rd.
No, the transmission is fully automated when it goes intro neutral if you break. It's not human interaction as it would do exactly the same if a robot pressed the break pedal. Or if a self-driving car would brake.
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@Pete-S by your logic stated above, if you had eight passengers and a five passenger self driving car, that car could not determine that you needed a second car, acquire a second car, bring the car to you, and drive it as well to the destination. But I can do this with Salt. So Salt meets your requirements, while a car or transmission do not.
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@Pete-S said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is it called automation?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is it called automation?:
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.
But only in response to the driver giving input via the accelerator. If the human stops, the gears shift out and wait. It's not "fully automated" outside of a super limited scope that needs constant human interaction to keep automating. It's dramatically less automated than something like Salt that keeps being automated even after the human has left.
Absolutely, he provided the example, I was explaining how it requires human interaction to keep the car in 3rd.
No, the transmission is fully automated when it goes intro neutral if you break. It's not human interaction as it would do exactly the same if a robot pressed the break pedal. Or if a self-driving car would brake.
Salt is fully automated when it stops when state is achieved. But unlike the transmission, the human doesn't have to change the accelerator to put Salt into neutral, it detects the need for neutral on its own. Automated fully versus partially.
