Vagrant and Packer

Set up a development/test environment with Vagrant and Packer. Reproducible, operating system independent and easy to set up.
Vagrant is an interface between the virtualization software and provisioning. Individual virtual machines up to entire environments can be defined in a single “Vagrantfile”. Packer allows different virtual machine images to be easily integrated and pre-configured. Packer images allow fully configured and provisioned machines to be deployed and started within seconds instead of minutes or hours.

Packer allows you to define boxes for different platforms or providers. For example:

  • AWS
  • DigitalOcean
  • Hyper-V
  • Parallels
  • QEMU
  • VirtualBox
  • VMware
  • libvirt

With Packer it is possible to create the export for Amazon Cloud (AWS), Virtual Box or Vagrant. For example, production can run on one or more AWS instances, while development, testing and configuration management can be tested with Virtual Box or Libvirt and Vagrant.

Example of use in development:

Server configurations are defined by Packer and Vagrant. Adjustments to the operating system and adjustments by administrators are defined in the configuration of Packer or Vagrant. It is then easy for developers to automatically create the development environment on the preferred operating system with “vagrant up” so that it resembles the production environment. Dependencies due to different operating systems or distributions can thus be eliminated. A developer can then concentrate fully on his development.

Example of use in administration:

How does the server(s) behave when one or more components are updated? These questions can be easily tested with Vagrant and Packer. If the desired result is not achieved, it is also possible to set up the environment quickly and again. Updates in the configuration or similar adjustments can be tested close to the system.

Example of use for tests:

With the definition of release statuses, the Vagrant environment can even be configured to such an extent that a test department can quickly and easily set up a defined status of an application including the operating system as a virtual machine without great effort. The setup is also ideally suited for automated tests. Have we piqued your interest? Would you like to find out more about Vagrant or Packer? We look forward to your inquiry.

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