Open source review: Ubuntu OS 12.04 LTS

Canonical has sought to improve, the firm’s founder and product strategist CEO Mark Shuttleworth’s vision is borne out in the “Juju” function.

This orchestration tool was first introduced in version 11.10 as a test deployment, but now exists in its full-blown form in Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS today.

Essentially, Juju automates service deployments, making it quicker and easier to get applications onto the cloud by using pre-written configurations of best practice that Canonical has called Charms.

Circumventing the need to repeatedly hard-code server tasks (such as rolling out WordPress to a number of user nodes for example), Charms exist to “distil the process of DevOps” by writing knowledge into a captured process template that can be re-used again and again.