IT Professionals, DevOps Engineers and SysAdmin’s would all agree that by automating their cloud infrastructure, they are able to spend more time doing what they do best. Cloud automation tools make it easier for them to focus on design and engineering.

As a business owner you probably don’t want to spend too much time managing small details of your cloud infrastructure. Therefore, cloud automation tools such as the ones we will be looking at below can help you manage your cloud better while giving you more time for other business activities.

These automation tools are useful whether you use the Public Cloud, Private Cloud or even the Hybrid Cloud. It is all in how you use them.

The following are some of the most effective cloud automation tools. They will help you automate almost all aspects of cloud infrastructure and free up some time for other aspects of your business.

Some of them are even free. 🙂

Fabric

Getting control over your shell commands is never easy. A Python library with an easy to use command-line tool is just what you need for your local or remote servers. It allows you to run tasks on many servers using SSH for deploying applications or running essential SysAdmin’s jobs in your cloud.

Fabric’s suite of operations can be used as components within other Python code. This will allow you to chain together common tasks. It is therefore the right tool for you if you want to make time consuming scripting and complex tasks more automated and easier.

It is an effective tool for sending and receiving server files to and from a server when human input is required. If this is how you generally run your cloud, this free tool should come in handy.

Chef

Chef is another widely used cloud automation infrastructure tool that could be useful to you. Its unique concept of turning infrastructure into code makes it the ideal tool to help IT professionals and engineers. The code it generates automates deployment, management and infrastructure building processes.

If you experience problems with deployment and building your cloud, Chef might be able to help. In fact, it may be handy if you want to save time and reduce the mistakes when deploying your cloud.

You can decide to use the free version of Chef which will include management of up to 10,000 nodes from one server and cross-platform management. You can also choose $6 per node a month option which gives you all the essentials plus cloud support in the form of an account manager.

Distelli

If you value speed and efficiency in your cloud deployment, Distelli may be the right tool for you. This is because it works to deploy any application to just about any server in a matter of minutes. It will also work with just about any piece of code on any server.

It will integrate seamlessly with any other tools you already use and will group your servers into roles, geography and cloud provider among other parameters. So in other words, it is highly effective and with more ways to make your cloud deployment easier than the most other cloud automation tools.

There is a free version of Distelli that will get you 2 servers, unlimited deployments, email support and unlimited releases. Paid versions of this tool will cost you anywhere from $150 to $750 (10 servers to 50 servers). If you need more than 100 servers you need to contact the Distelli support team for a quote based on your needs.

The cloud Infrastructure tools above each have their own unique benefit and are hence designed to cater for different needs.

Fabric is for you if you are a cloud user with simple needs, but you also value a well automated cloud.

Chef is designed for the more involved IT professional or engineer who is looking for a tool that is more functional.

Distelli is for the cloud user who values speed and efficiency.

Which one of the three are you? Let us know which one of the three tools mentioned above would best suit you and your cloud needs.