Harness the power of Chef to automate management of Windows-based systems using hands-on examples.

Recently, I had the opportunity to read, ‘Managing Windows Servers with Chef’, authored John Ewart, and published in May, 2014 by Packt Publishing. At a svelte 110 pages in paperback form, ‘Managing Windows Servers with Chef’, is a quick read, packed with concise information, relevant examples, and excellent code samples. Available on Packt Publishing’s website for a mere $11.90 for the ebook, it a worthwhile investment for anyone considering Chef Software’s Chef product for automating their Windows-based infrastructure.

As an IT professional, I use Chef for both Windows and Linux-based IT automation, on a regular basis. In my experience, there is a plethora of information on the Internet about properly implementing and scaling Chef. There is seldom a topic I can’t find the answers to, online. However, it has also been my experience, information is often Linux-centric. That is one reason I really appreciated Ewart’s book, concentrating almost exclusively on Windows-based implementations of Chef.

IT professionals, just getting starting with Chef, or migrating from Puppet, will find the ‘Managing Windows Servers with Chef’ invaluable. Ewart does a good job building the user’s understanding of the Chef ecosystem, before beginning to explain its application to a Windows-based environment. If you are considering Chef versus Puppet Lab’s Puppet for Windows-based IT automation, reading this book will give you a solid overview of Chef.

Seasoned users of Chef will also find the ‘Managing Windows Servers with Chef’ useful. Professionals quickly master the Chef principles, and develop the means to automate their specific tasks with Chef. But inevitably, there comes the day when they must automate something new with Chef. That is where the book can serve as a handy reference.

Of all the books topics, I especially found value in Chapter 5 (Managing Cloud Services with Chef) and Chapter 6 (Going Beyond the Basics – Testing Recipes). Even large enterprise-scale corporations are moving infrastructure to cloud providers. Ewart demonstrates Chef’s Windows-based integration with Microsoft’s Azure, Amazon’s EC2, and Rackspace’s Cloud offerings. Also, Ewart’s section on testing is a reminder to all of us, of the importance of unit testing. I admit I more often practice TAD (‘Testing After Development’) than TDD (Test Driven Development), LOL. Ewart introduces both RSpec and ChefSpec for testing Chef recipes.

I recommend ‘Managing Windows Servers with Chef’ for anyone considering Chef, or who is seeking a good introductory guide to getting started with Chef for Windows-based systems.