Puppet Enterprise FAQ

What is Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise is the commercially supported, packaged release of Puppet, the leading open source solution for enterprise systems management, including data center automation and configuration management. Puppet automates the provisioning, patching, and configuration of operating system and application components across enterprise and cloud infrastructure. Puppet Enterprise packages the underlying components required, and bundles the requisite support and services necessary to support enterprise deployments.

How is it different than the open source distribution of Puppet?

Puppet Enterprise packages the power of Puppet with many enterprise-oriented features in order to make using and maintaining Puppet even easier:

Simplified Integration & Installation: Get up to speed immediately with a pre-built integration of Puppet, Puppet Master, Dashboard, Facter and all Puppet dependencies such as Ruby, Passenger, and Apache.
Scalable: Pre-configured to offer out-of-the-box scalability and the performance levels required in large installations.
Tested & Approved: Packaged, tested and QA’d by Puppet Labs engineers
Support: Enterprise-class support is included: issue resolution, feature enhancement priority requests, and best practices advice.
Always Current: Maintenance is included in your license. You always have access to the latest and greatest releases of the integrated platform.

This grid also demonstrates the differences between Puppet with Puppet Enterprise.

What are the specific components and dependencies included with Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise includes the following in a single installer:

Puppet components:

Puppet Master
Puppet Agent
Puppet Dashboard
Puppet Module Tool
Puppet Compliance
User Account Management
Facter

Third-party products:

Ruby
Apache
Phusion Passenger

Third-party libraries:

Ruby on Rails
RubyGems
Rack
Rake
Haml
jQuery
ActiveMQ

How do I install Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise includes all the Puppet components and dependencies as a single installer. You can complete the process in around 10 minutes.

Why did you create Puppet Enterprise?

Since 2005, thousands of companies have adopted Puppet for configuration management and data center automation. We have received a lot of interest in accelerating the time it takes to get started with Puppet and streamlining the process of keeping your Puppet deployment up to date. Many customers have also requested support and other assurances that enterprises have come to expect from industry-leading products.

Puppet Enterprise was specifically designed to offer the benefits of Puppet with installation, scalability, support and maintenance.

Is Puppet Labs Using an Open Core Strategy?

No. Open Core is where you block specific functionality from being in your open source “core” so that it can be provided by a commercial version of the same software. An example of an open core approach would include not allowing Active Directory integration in an open source project so that the business makes money out of the commercial plug-in which does provide it.

We only have one, open source version of Puppet. Our goal is to make Puppet ubiquitous, which cannot happen without the open source version of Puppet providing significant value for our users. Our commercialization efforts revolve around building separate tools that will depend on Puppet, as well as providing support and services. For example, we may choose to offer a tool that integrates Puppet with a commercial trouble ticketing system (i.e. Remedy). In this case we would most likely make that tool a commercial add-on to Puppet Enterprise.

In keeping with Puppet Enterprise’s open source heritage the source packages we’ve used to build it are available from our enterprise source downloads package repositories.

Can I try Puppet Enterprise for free?

Yes, you can download Puppet Enterprise and manage up to ten (10) nodes free.

How much will Puppet Enterprise cost?

Puppet Enterprise pricing starts at $2450. The pricing structure is based on the number of nodes managed and the type of support plan requested. There are numerous tiers for the number of nodes so you can find a range that fits your immediate needs. As your Puppet Enterprise deployment grows, it will be easy to add more nodes to your system.

See the How To Buy page for more details on pricing for Puppet Enterprise.

What if my company needs security updates to be provided for the products in a reasonable time frame because of compliance issues?

One of the primary advantages of using Puppet Enterprise is the fact that you no longer need to package and maintain the various versions of Apache, Ruby, Passenger, etc. in order to run Puppet effectively. Ensuring that our customers receive timely security updates was carefully considered when we decided to bundle the software packages in Puppet Enterprise. As a response Puppet Labs has integrated a security alert monitoring and update process into our Puppet Enterprise build process. We’ll be endeavoring to produce packages for platforms with security bugs or issues with a limited interval from when vendors release their updates. We’ll be ensuring all customers receive notifications when this occurs.

What is Puppet Labs’ definition of a node?

A node is any physical or virtual system that is managed by Puppet. This could be a physical server in your data center, a virtual server in the cloud or even a desktop machine.

How long will it take to download and install Puppet Enterprise?

From our tests with real customers, you can have an entire Puppet system up and running in 10 minutes.

Is support included in Puppet Enterprise?

Absolutely. We know that enterprise customers are using Puppet to manage critical components of their infrastructure. We know it is important for these customers to get a rapid response to any issues they encounter.

You can choose the standard Gold support that comes with Puppet Enterprise or you can upgrade to the Platinum support that includes 24x7x365 support.

I’m an experienced sysadmin. Why would I need Puppet Enterprise?

Simplified installation is only one of the benefits of Puppet Enterprise. Even an experienced sysadmin has plenty of important things to be doing with their time. As a Puppet Enterprise customer you receive built-in support and your Puppet installation will always be up to date with the latest improvements.

Is MCollective included in Puppet Enterprise?

Yes, as of Puppet Enterprise 1.2 MCollective is included.

If I’m already using Puppet, can I upgrade my existing deployment to Puppet Enterprise?

Yes, you can install Puppet Enterprise on the same machines where you have deployed Puppet. It is a straightforward process to migrate your configurations from Puppet to Puppet Enterprise. If you want to accelerate the transition process you can sign-up for our Puppet Enterprise Audit service package.

Puppet Labs

Puppet Enterprise FAQ