Change Control for Servers /hardware and software updates

Question

Anyone know of any good change control software? Mainly for logging changes to servers by the admin guys.

Cheers!

John

Answer 1

You can start with any simple ticketing system. I like Trac myself, but there are many others out there.

The process that I typically go through, for a small team, is as follows.

1. Issue is identified.
2. Ticket is created with basic description.
3. Ticket is updated with findings and plan of action.
4. Remedy work is undertaken.
5. Ticket is updated. Closed if fixed. Or repeat to step 3.
6. Record persistent changes in a shared document.

We use Trac's wiki for shared documentation. A wiki page is created for each machine/service type which details it's build, prerequisites, deliverables and quirks. Documents are easy to format and edit. The whole lot is searchable and easily referable.

We also use Puppet and version control other configs, so use commit-hooks to reference tickets. But you don't necessarily have to go that far just to benefit.

The most important detail is enforcing every engineer to follow the same workflow. If they don't, then you're wasting your time ;)

Answer 2

Puppet is awesome for this kind of thing