Deployment Framework Best Practices for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on HP ProLiant

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Figure 1: Deployment continuums
As one criterion, an environment needs to assess both the current and planned mix of operating
systems, and decide if the tendency is towards one or multiple platforms. If you determine that a
single operating platform is your desired end state, this commonly yields a smaller set of tools and
solutions to consider. If you determine that a mix of operating system is your desired end sate, you
will have many more deployment framework choices and you will have to rely on other criteria to
narrow the choices.
As shown in Figure 1, the support staff likely already has some tendencies. If those are engrained in
the culture, you should explore other options before crafting a deployment framework, yet favor those
that mesh with existing tendencies. For staff whose experience and knowledge base tends towards
tool-based methodologies, they tend to rely heavily on local integration of mix and match processes,
optimizing the end-to-end approach for the local business goals. Those that rely on more
encompassing solution-oriented offerings, strive for commonality across multiple target platforms with
offerings that tend towards ease of use and the resulting operational efficiency.
Given the mapping between the operating platform and the integration culture of the support staff,
two different styles of deployment offerings are commonly available. If coming from a more
proprietary or commercial operating system platform, you usually must use the tools of the particular
vendor or Linux distribution only. One of the most liberating facets of Linux, and Free and Open
Source Software (FOSS) in general, is the amount and quality of choices available. With a fair
amount of overlap, plus considerable depth and breadth available, it becomes a matter of policy or
preference when looking at offerings.