A Chat with Chef about the DevOps Movement and Habitat Builder
Last week at our annual user conference, Node.js Interactive, we announced several new members to the Node.js Foundation. One of the members that joined is Chef. Chef works with more than a thousand companies around the world to deliver their vision of digital transformation.
We sat down with the team at Chef to talk about how Node.js fits within the DevOps movement, why they joined the Node.js Foundation, and also about a new offering from the group called Habitat Builder.
Q: How do Node.js developers use Chef and how does it help them build out applications?
Chef has a long history of helping development and operations teams collaborate more effectively on how applications are automated and delivered. Last year, Chef released our third open source project called Habitat. Habitat helps modern application teams build and package their application. Once the application is packaged, application teams can then use Habitat to deploy these packages to a variety of platforms such as Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, or Cloud Foundry.
Our users have found that Habitat makes automation more approachable. Developers focus on what they’re familiar with, building their software, and Habitat handles the complexity of deployment. Habitat offers scaffolding for Node.js giving Node.js developers the ability to package their application with as little as 2 commands, and 4 lines of BASH.
Q: How do you see Node.js fitting within the DevOps movement?
Developers of any language have an important role in the DevOps movement. They are the primary consumers of the systems that are built to deliver software. The cultural aspects and process improvements of DevOps are about making our work more harmonious, and efficient. Empathy is also an important aspect of DevOps, and by Chef participating in communities such as Node.js, we are able to better understand what problems developers face, and come up with solutions.
Q: You recently announced a new SaaS-based service, Habitat Builder. What is it and how will it make developers lives a little easier?
Habitat Builder provides the fastest way for developers to package applications simply and consistently. Developers can connect their GitHub repositories to builder, and their applications will be automatically built and packaged with Habitat each time they check in new code. Once packaged, Habitat Builder will export the application as a container image to Docker Hub.
The goal with Habitat Builder is to make it easier for developers to go from source code to deploying cloud native application.
Q: You also recently joined the Node.js Foundation, why was it important for you to join the Foundation?
We seek to design software that solves real problems for developers. It’s important for us to involve ourselves in those communities to better understand what those problems are and how they impact a developer’s work.
Chef has a long history of active participation in many different communities. We find that this gives us a more holistic view of the challenges of modern application teams. Joining the foundation helps us stay plugged into the Node.js community.
