Self-healing technology

Cfengine is one of very few software-solutions that actually fixes Data Center problems, not just just reports them. With Cfengine you can spend time improving your services instead of repairing them.

Business and regulatory compliance

Whether your IT Service Management is ready for ITIL, or you run a SOX-regulated Data Center, using Cfengine's human readable promise language, compliance is easy.

Easy adoption and low risk

Cfengine can be adopted on a phased basis. It has few dependencies, is small in size and can be up and running in hours. Cfengine will evolve with you regardless of growth and organizational complexity.

Managing complexity

Cfengine's acclaimed system of Voluntary Cooperation makes every host in your network fully in charge of its own resources for rapid adaptability and high security. You can now choose affordably to optimize any computer to specialist needs, or to converge large numbers of hosts into functionally identical workhorses. Your configuration needs do not have be limited by poor technology. Cfengine-managed systems can be changed on the fly without the need for bare-metal re-installation, and will adapt continuously to changing needs.

Size matters

No one is too small to use configuration management. Consistent and repeatable methods are good practice at any scale, and Cfengine works equally well on a single laptop or 30,000 servers. It is the simplest configuration automation system to install and get running, and also the most scalable one, thanks to autonomous operation.

Legacy systems

Unlike most automation, Cfengine copes easily with legacy systems. Does your Data Center have one or more servers previously configured by hand, with a history no one in the company quite recalls? Perhaps custom scripts perform some magic that makes no sense to anyone remaining. Cfengine helps you to bring these systems under control, documenting and adopting them on a step-by-step basis, perhaps for eventual replacement. Thanks to the continuous probing and monitoring you don't need to steamroller systems into compliance as with other automation systems. You can embrace small, manageable changes at a pace that suits your needs.

Autonomy: are you attacking your systems?

Security and adaptability first: Cfengine uses exclusively "pull" based methods for managing networks. Old fashioned "push" methods that `attack' hosts to attempt to force them into compliance put systems at risk from heavy-handed centralization and from malicious attackers who might take over the system. A single bad decision could ride roughshod over important local customizations, moreover forced changes cannot work when machines are switched off, unavailable, or locally configured to resist attack. At Cfengine, we believe that no computer should be asked to make itself vulnerable in order to be managed. Voluntary Cooperation ensures that each individual network resource has the last word in configuration decisions and will be configured and secured for individual needs, even in an environment of partial or mobile network connectivity.