OFA + AWS

Anyone know of a good tool to make these types of diagrams? Preferably automatically? I've been meaning to create something that plugs into Chef and or nmap/netstat. In my experience, any diagram/inventory/whatever that isn't automatically updated invariably drifts from reality.

The diagram follows the style of the AWS Reference Architectures[0]. I have yet to find a published set of diagram components that compare well to that style.<p>Edit: Juan Domenech[1] has a small custom made component pallet in png form. And, it looks like the original diagrams are custom Adobe Illustrator drawings[2].<p>[0] <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/" rel="nofollow">http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/</a><p>[1] <a href="http://blog.domenech.org/2012/06/aws-diagrams-palette-v10.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.domenech.org/2012/06/aws-diagrams-palette-v10.ht...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://blog.domenech.org/2012/05/aws-diagrams.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.domenech.org/2012/05/aws-diagrams.html</a>

That's an awesome diagram and quite a few servers (but latency kills the map-overlay experience, i think a static png or svg might have been better...) Interesting that servers are are either paired autoscaling over two AZs, or statically provisioned in three AZs - or am i mis-reading the diagram? Two entire mirrors for testing and staging must have become a pretty big cost.<p>For others outside the US confused about what the application actually does, and what the Narwhal in the testing/staging pictures refers to, this helped; <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-to-win-deep-inside-obamas-campaign-tech/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-...</a>

This is really great - I'd love to have a similar diagram for data flow and components of the systems I work on. It might not benefit engineers very much but it'd be fantastic for clients or some of the less technical people in the company.<p>I wonder how hard (I'm thinking hard?) it would be to have a tool for something like this, making the layout easy and revealing more and more information as you zoom in.<p>Even better if it was live and updating with system metrics.

When folks from the Romney campaign complained of technical deficiencies in his get-out-the-vote operation, pundits and news outlets intimated that the complaints were scapegoating IT for bad policy.<p>But looking at this diagram, I'm pleased to see that engineering was a big part of the Obama campaign. It really hammers home how badly out of their league Romney's TechOps team was.

<a href="http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/obama/" rel="nofollow">http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/obama/</a>

Is each one of those little grey cuboids an virtual machine? If so, that is rather a lot of virtual machines. I am surprised so many were necessary. What kind of load was this system handling?

i guess this leaked. ;)