Event-Triggered Automation Scripts Set By Python-Powered Stackstorm

The first public version of the eponymous open source operations automation solution was launched by StackStorm, which is currently staffed by the ex- members of Puppet Labs, Github, SwiftStack, Apache Libcloud team and the Rack space team. StackStorm which is written in Python and made available under license the Apache 2.0 will provide the Information Technology departments of the companies a definite method through which they can automatically activate and drive the behaviors from one part of their infrastructure to another part through the means of events.

About the software

According to the Co-founder and CEO of StackStorm, Evan Powell, the perfect description of the software was sent out in the email. The description highlights that StackStorm has the ability to soak up events from any given source and then later on it can make sense out of these collected events through the assistance from the rule engine. Once these events have been analyzed and absorbed, the software will make a final decision. The software can later on implement an immediate task or execute a long-running series of tasks. For example, a new post on a given website will be able to trigger a cross post on another website like Tumblr or even generate an automated tweet.

In Comparison with others

From the description given by Evan, StackStorm seems to resemble the website “IFTT”. This is a website, which basically allows the users to input from different sources like an incoming email or a news piece in an RSS feed and then generates an output. Depending on this we can clearly say that StackStorm has the capability of covering more behaviors and operations and that too at a great range. There were comparisons drawn with Salt, Puppet, Ansible and Chef, which are the staples of automation solutions in the Information technology now. The company does not intend to replace these solutions individually, but they are looking for augmenting or replace the roadblocks of the ad-hoc scripting which often grows around and between IT systems.

According to Evan Powell, StackStorm software is all about the management of the operational patterns which includes the end-to-end implementation of event through assessment to action. On the other hand, configuration management solutions are basically about carrying out action meant to change and meet configurations. Currently even the blog post available on the website of the company emphasizes on the fact that the software is a solution to the slump of hand-rolled or homegrown tools that generate "silos of automation" and also the work that can be performed by this software on some of products and the tools.

At the moment, this software is being expected to replace many tools like Jenkins but the Evan also highlights the fact that the software can work in coordination with other tools as well. Currently as the software has been written in Python, it looks to be an outcome of Openstack. But this will allow the IT users to make use of another platform from the Python library.