Test-Driven Infrastructure with Chef, 2nd Edition

Chapter 6. A Test-Driven Infrastructure Framework

At the time of the first edition of this book, there was only one tool and a handful of people exploring the ideas of infrastructure testing. The first edition covered that tool—a tool written by me as a proof of concept to demonstrate that the project of testing infrastructure code was achievable. This tool, Cucumber-Chef, was intentionally narrow in its purview, in that it attempted to explore one particular aspect of the broader infrastructure-testing landscape, in a way that reduced the commitment in terms of acquiring new machines to zero. Based around Opscode’s Hosted Chef service and Amazon’s EC2 platform, it set out to open the discussion and get the conversation moving.

The testing ecosystem has blossomed since the first edition of this book. Mature frameworks are emerging, significant community adoption of the testing of cookbooks and infrastructure is taking place, and helper tools and knife plug-ins specifically targeted at infrastructure testing are released regularly.

This chapter takes a high-level philosophical overview of the business of testing infrastructure code. It sets out a vision for what the landscape should look like. This is a landscape that changes day by day. At the time of this writing—early summer 2013—there is a profound level of interest in infrastructure testing. Discussions abound on the mailing lists, IRC, Twitter, and in various podcasts. It’s a dynamic, exciting, and fast-moving subject area.