mazzle VS porter

I've been experimenting with alternative pipeline syntaxes.

One example is using Graphviz graph files as an execution plan for software deployments. You can see a graph here:

https://github.com/samsquire/mazzle/blob/master/docs/archite...

I wrote code with networkx to parse this graph dot file and then follow the plan topologically, spinning up packer, terraform, bash scripts, compilation and so on. It also executes graph nodes in parallel where it can.

I talk about it here https://devops-pipeline.com/

My problem with bash pipelines is passing data along and referring to previous steps' data. You kind of need to enrich the data that goes along the pipeline.

I use Graphviz dot syntax to configure entire cloud computing environments in the order they must be built. This is pipelines as code and infrastructure as code

It's very powerful! Not every organisation can bring up an entire environment with one command.

Here is a executable diagram of a build worker cloud nodes, Kubernetes, consul, vault, Debian package server, Java app, SSH bastion, Prometheus, grafana, DNS and security groups.

https://github.com/samsquire/mazzle/blob/master/docs/archite...

The tool also parallelises the build based on the graph so packer builds can run in parallel.

https://devops-pipeline.com/

It also has a GUI but it's not ready for other people to use.

I use a tool I wrote to layer my infrastructure with layers called components and I configure it with a Graphviz file.

My tool, called mazzle (previously devops-pipeline) would run parts of the graph that can run in parallel in parallel. It can also run parts of the build on SSH workers. You bring up the workers at the beginning of the build.

Here's an example of a graph generated from graphviz file: https://github.com/samsquire/mazzle/blob/master/docs/archite...

This graph brings up a hashicorp vault server, Java application, bastion proxy etc.

here's the graphviz file: https://github.com/samsquire/mazzle-starter/blob/master/arch...

It describes the ordering of the infrastructure, the invocation of Ansible, packer, shell scripts to set up vault etc.

The idea is to be able to bring up a new environment by changing one parameter. There's a React GUI too.

https://devops-pipeline.com

This is just a concept. AFAIK only one implemented this concept is Microsoft's project porter: https://github.com/getporter/porter

For porter I am talking about this project https://porter.run/ and NOT this https://porter.sh/

Porter

As far as I know the tool is used at least in Microsoft. The classic use case is where you want to install an application and also define the infrastructure as well (i.e cluster + db + lb + app). You can see the examples here https://github.com/getporter/porter/tree/main/examples

Check https://cnab.io/ and https://porter.sh/

I'm closely tracking an effort by Microsoft that aims to do a lot of what you're describing since I find myself bridging between these tools and deploying stacks that span tools and roles. [CNAB](https://cnab.io/) and the front-running implementation, [Porter](https://porter.sh/), enable one-step infra deployments, packaged as a single OCI-compatible container, with any number of steps, using the best tools for each of those steps. Think of using aws-cli for some initialization step (create or verify presence of a state bucket), applying some terraform to create infra, and finishing with a helm chart to complete deployment of app components. Each stage in a bundle packages not only the code to run it but also the execution binary of the tool that runs it. The spec and porter are still a moving target but it's a promising space and a nice adjacent evolution of the current state of tooling.

Cool, it's great to know that it isn't abandoned.

I'm not sure why you'd say that their business model was a success. They were bought by Microsoft for Azure. I guess I wonder if a PaaS company can survive without getting the profits off renting the machines to people. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all have PaaS options based around the idea that it comes bundled with the compute, not as a standalone open-source thing for you to use on any platform.

I guess the question is whether Porter's business plan is "make enough that a company that owns a cloud wants to buy us". Oracle could probably use a nice PaaS platform and team. Maybe DigitalOcean would like to beef up their PaaS offering by acqui-hiring a team with proven knowledge.

Poking around https://deislabs.io, it's interesting to see that they have a project called "Porter" which seems to be unrelated to the "Porter" being launched here: https://porter.sh. They aren't quite the same, but they both have "easily run your app" goals.

There is already this from Microsoft https://github.com/getporter/porter