Opscode, Inc., the leader in cloud infrastructure automation, today announced its Chef software and commercially supported Hosted Chef and Private Chef will now provide infrastructure automation in Windows environments. Opscode’s release of Chef cookbooks enables broad deployment and automation of key components of Windows infrastructure, including PowerShell, Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL server and Windows services.

Opscode Chef is an open source systems integration framework built for automating the cloud. It allows IT teams to easily deploy thousands of servers and scale applications throughout an entire infrastructure. Through a combination of configuration management and service-oriented architectures, Chef, Hosted Chef and Private Chef make it easy to create an elegant, fully automated infrastructure.

"Many companies have large, complex Windows deployments and want a solution to manage infrastructure configuration and scale more efficiently," said Christopher Brown, chief technology officer at Opscode. "We are excited to meet this need with Chef’s improved support for Windows, which builds on our existing capabilities in system setup, automation and management."

Customers can use Opscode Chef to configure raw machines as web servers, and then to manage the web application deployment, automating all the core components of big web shops on Windows.

"Aberdeen research has found that datacenters have become more dynamic than ever before as the percentage of applications getting virtualized continues to quickly rise," said *** Csaplar, senior research analyst for Aberdeen Group. "To get the most from this new dynamic infrastructure companies need to deploy tools that automate infrastructure management with policies that respond to datacenter events. Opscode’s Chef software, and its use of recipes and cookbooks, enables that automation for the Windows and storage environment. I believe users will find this proactive management capability very useful in squeezing the most from their IT infrastructure."

With support for Windows infrastructure, Chef software – known as cookbooks – can now provide the setup, automation and maintenance of Windows-based servers and applications, while still allowing companies who have deployed PowerShell to leverage their current investment. Opscode Chef allows administrators to include PowerShell into cookbook recipes, which Chef then propagates automatically, enabling consistent and repeated use and distribution in large-scale environments.

It would be virtually impossible to manually configure an organization’s system to scale thousands of servers. Chef provides significant value as organizations add servers, handle application updates and edit scripts across the infrastructure.

Opscode Chef also fully supports SQL Server, and allows for IIS installation, deployment and configuration application. Specific support for Windows infrastructure includes:

• PowerShell: Opscode has made it simple for users working in Chef on Windows with a Ruby recipe to seamlessly integrate a block of PowerShell script into the middle of the recipe. The recipe language is simple with few constructs, so users don’t realize they’re in Ruby until they do something outside the domain specific language (DSL). Users get the benefit of Chef’s management and automation, plus the execution of the PowerShell script.

• IIS: The Chef client is able to install IIS and configure web applications.

• SQL Server: Chef manages installation, configuration and updates to the SQL Server.

• Windows Services: Chef provides the automation tools for service management across all machines. It also provides analysis across the entire fleet to determine which services are running.

• Installer: The solution bundles Ruby into the Chef Client Installer for Windows for seamless installations.

"As part of our total commitment to Windows environments, we will continue to release new software and cookbooks to broaden our support for this important platform," said Brown.