Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1WlpXHF. Axel Fontaine looks at what Immutable Infrastructure is and how it affects scaling, logging, sessions, configuration, service discovery and more. He also looks at how containers and machine images compare and why some things people took for granted may not be necessary anymore. Filmed at qconlondon.com. Axel Fontaine is the founder and CEO of Boxfuse. Axel is also the creator and project lead of Flyway, the open source tool that makes database migration easy. He is a Continuous Delivery and Immutable Infrastructure expert, a Java Champion, a JavaOne Rockstar and a regular speaker at various large international conferences.

1. Rise of the Machine Images
Immutable
Infrastructure
@axelfontaine

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3. Purpose of QCon
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Strategy
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Highlights
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4. About Axel Fontaine
• Founder and CEO of Boxfuse
• Over 15 years industry experience
• Continuous Delivery expert
• Regular speaker at tech conferences
• JavaOne RockStar
@axelfontaine

5. flywaydb.org

6. boxfuse.com

7. about
questions

8. sometime in the 20th century …

10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tdkc60cassette.jpg

12. +=ON
PREM
+
Challenges
 Power
 Network
 Cooling
 Phys. Security
 Phys. Space
 OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
 Procurement
 Vendor Mgmt
 Capacity Plan.
 Financing

13. +=ON
PREM
+
Challenges
 Power
 Network
 Cooling
 Phys. Security
 Phys. Space
 OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
 Procurement
 Vendor Mgmt
 Capacity Plan.
 Financing

15. +=ON
PREM
+
Challenges
 Power
 Network
 Cooling
 Phys. Security
 Phys. Space
 OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
 Procurement
 Vendor Mgmt
 Capacity Plan.
 Financing
MonthsHours Days or Weeks

16. += +
Challenges
 Power
 Network
 Cooling
 Phys. Security
 Phys. Space
 OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
 Procurement
 Vendor Mgmt
 Capacity Plan.
 Financing
MonthsHours Days or Weeks
COLO

17. += +
Challenges
 OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
 Procurement
 Vendor Mgmt
 Capacity Plan.
 Financing
Hours Days or Weeks
ROOT
SERVER

18.  OS Install
 OS Patching
 App Install
 App Updates
Let’s talk about software

19. POLL:
which level of automation are you at?
 Build
 Unit Tests
 Continuous Integration
 Acceptance Tests
 Continuous Deployment (Code)
 Continuous Deployment (Code + DB + Configuration)
 Infrastructure

20. Build Test

21. Build Test

22. • One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment

23. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App

24. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App

25. why aren’t we doing the same
for the layers this is running on ???

27. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Build Test

28. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Build Test
App

29. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Any difference is a potential source of errors

30. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates UpdatesUpdates
Sysadmin

31. If I had asked my
customers what they
wanted they would have
said a faster horse.
Henry Ford

32. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates UpdatesUpdates
Sysadmin

33. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Updates UpdatesUpdates
Automated
Sysadmin

34. fast forward to 2016 …

35. Every day, AWS adds
enough server capacity
to power the whole $7B
enterprise Amazon.com
was in 2004.
Weekends included.

36. Shift to a world of abundance
(no more resource scarcity)

37. "Advanced Test Reactor" by Argonne National Laboratory -
originally posted to Flickr as Advanced Test Reactor core,
Idaho National LaboratoryUploaded using F2ComButton.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Advanced_Test_Reac
tor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Advanced_Test_Reactor.jpg
"RIAN archive 341194 Kursk Nuclear Power Plant" by RIA
Novosti archive, image #341194 / Sergey Pyatakov / CC-BY-SA
3.0. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RIAN_archive_341194_
Kursk_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg#mediaviewer/File:RIAN_archi
ve_341194_Kursk_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg
Control Plane Data Plane

38. Control Plane Data Plane

39. Automated
Provisioning
Cost-driven
Architectures

40. it is time to rethink the faster horse

41. App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test

42. App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
Undifferentiated
Heavy lifting

43. App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test

44. App
Machine
Image
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
Build Test
Machine
Image

45. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
Machine
Image
Machine
Image
Machine
Image

46. Machine
Image
Machine
Image
Machine
Image
Updates

47. but there is one big problem left …

48. Machine
Image
Network Cable

49. Machine
Image
Network Cable
Multiple
GB

50. Running servers in
production should be like
going backpacking. You
take the bare minimum
with you. Anything else
is going to hurt.
A Wise Man

51. what is really adding business value ???

52. Machine
Image
Network Cable

53. Editors
Daemons OS Kernel
Libraries
Utilities
Drivers
App
App Server
Package Mgr
Compilers
SSH
Firewall
Compatibility
Man Pages
Language
Log Files
Users
Shells
Machine
Image
Network Cable

54. OS Kernel
Libraries
App
App Server
Language
Bootable
App

55. 15
MB

56. Multiple
GB
15
MB

57. Network Cable
Bootable
App

58. who is this for ???

59. OS Kernel
Libraries
Language
App Server
App
12-factor app

60. demo

61. What are the implications ???

62. Focus shift
Individual instances become disposable
Instance Service

63. Treat servers like cattle instead of pets

64. for servers is dead!

65. high uptime is a liability
The longer an instance is up,
the harder it becomes to recreate exactly
(and it will fail eventually!)

66. How to solve service discovery ?
Use a stable
entry point
with an
internal registry
? Elastic
Load
Balancer
Instance
Instance
Instance

67. What about security ?
When was the last time your toaster got hacked?

68. What about security ?
Complexity is the Enemy of Security

69. What about security ?
• Smallest possible attack surface
• Vastly reduced implications due to low
uptime and transient nature of instances
• Very difficult to exploit other systems
because essential tooling is missing
Bootable
App

70. • Bake as much configuration as
possible for all environments
directly in the Bootable App
• Use environment detection
and auto-configuration
what about configuration ???

71. Bootable
App
Key Value
JDBC_URL jdbc:…
ENV prod
what about configuration ???
• Bake as much configuration as
possible for all environments
directly in the Bootable App
• Use environment detection
and auto-configuration
• Pass remaining configuration
at startup and expose it as
environment variables

72. Instance
what about the database ???
• Keep all persistent state out of the instance,
including the database
• Use one of the many good hosted solutions
available like Amazon RDS or Google Cloud SQL
• Use a database migration tool to update the
schema on application startup

73. what about the logs ???
LOG
file
LOG
file
LOG
file
ssh me@myserver1
tail -f server.log
ssh me@myserver2
tail -f server.log
ssh me@myserver3
tail -f server.log

74. LOG
file
LOG
file
LOG
file log server
where logs can be
• aggregated
• stored and backuped
• indexed
• searched

75. what about sessions ???
Keep session in an encrypted and signed cookie
• avoids session timeouts
• avoids server clustering & session replication
• avoids sticky sessions & server affinity
Instance

76. what about rolling out new versions ???

77. Availability Zone 2
Load
Balancer
Logs
Availability Zone 1
App
V1
App
V1

78. Load
Balancer
Logs
Availability Zone 1
App
V1
App
V1
Availability Zone 2

79. Load
Balancer
Logs
Availability Zone 1
App
V1
App
V1
App
V2
App
V2
Availability Zone 2

80. Load
Balancer
Logs
Availability Zone 1
Availability Zone 2
App
V1
App
V1
App
V2
App
V2

81. what about containers ???
(as in OS-level virtualization)

82. understanding modern CPUs
Both Intel and AMD have
hardware support for virtualization
• isolation
• performance penalty

83. Image
Hardware
Hypervisor
Image
Hardware
OS+Container
Runtime
ContainerVM
on prem
your
responsibility

84. Image
Hardware
Hypervisor
Image
Hardware
OS+Container
Runtime
ContainerVM
cloud
Hypervisor

85. cloud
your
responsibility
cloud
responsibilityinstance
scheduling
machine
images
instances instance
volumes
instance
networking
container
scheduling
container
images
containers container
volumes
container
networking

86. 1.5 months of t2.nano

87. 1 hour of t2.nano

88. cloud
your
responsibility
cloud
responsibilityinstance
scheduling
machine
images
instances instance
volumes
instance
networking
container
scheduling
container
images
containers container
volumes
container
networking
Only makes sense if
you cannot afford
0.5p/hour
granularity

89. summary

90. • One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment

91. Bootable
App
• One immutable unit
• Regenerated after every change
• Promoted from Environment to Environment
• Use Minimal Images
• Focus on Cost in your architecture
Classic Mistake: Build per Environment

92. boxfuse.com

93. Thanks

94. AXEL FONTAINE
@axelfontaine
boxfuse.com
I'LL BE BACK

95. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/immutable-
infrastructure