What is Rundeck
Rundeck helps to define build , deply and manage your automation work.It is a open-source tool.This application is a Java-based webapp. The application provides both graphical interface and network interfaces used by the Rundeck shell tools.With the help of rundeck you can execute your workflow on existing automation like Ansible , Puppet ,Chef,Jenkins , Kubernetes etc.
We can work with rundeck in 3 ways
- Web Console
- CLI tool.
- Web API
Rundeck Architecture
This is the architecture of the Rundeck enterprise version (Process Automation)
Rundeck support two types of installation method
- System package
- Launcher
Use Cases of Rundeck
- Job Scheduling and Orchestration : It provide to users to schedule various workflow and task. We can set the commands to run in specific time or in response to specific triggers.
- Cross-Platform Compatibility : This helps to run the task on the variety of operating system like windows ,linux and macOS. It can also interact with the different types of infrastructure like on-premises servers ,Virtual machine .
- User Access Control : It provide the access control and user management features . We can defined the user roles and permission for authorised personnel and execute or modify the specific jobs and workflow.
- Logging and Auditing : This provides the logs of all jobs execution which helps for auditing and troubleshooting and ensuring compliance with the organisation policies.
- Integrate with other tools : It support with a wide range of third-party tools and services like VCS , notification system and configuration management tools.
- Scaling and Load Balancing: Its also provide the high availability and load balancing for the automation tasks.
- Security Compliance : With the help of this tool we enforce the security policies .Run vulnerability scans and perform some security audit automatically.
Conclusion
Rundeck is a powerful tool that help organisation to enhance their IT operations by using the automating workflows and process in different platforms and environments.We can integrate the rundeck with modern DevOps tools and practices.It comes in two types first is free and second one is enterprise version currently known as the Process Automation.
Process Automation provides some extra features like clustering, advanced workflow, enhanced dashboards/visualization, and some extra automation plugins (AWS SSM, WinRM).It stores, the job definition and execution history in a relation database, and the output of the job execution is saved on the disk and also forwarded to a remote location like S3 or Logstash.
References: