Rundeck is an open-source tool that helps to define build, deploy and manage automation. It provides web console, CLI tools, and a Web API. It is written in Java and allows you to run tasks across a set of nodes. Role based access control policy gives more flexibility to manage different user access permissions. Process automations are defined as jobs. You can define each step of the workflow that can be a job itself or any task. User can give input options in the job definition. These options can be used in the job workflow like a variable. Option values can be default or multiple choice or secured. Rundeck is more like an orchestration tool that can be used to manage servers or cloud environments. It supports and integrates well with modern DevOps tools and practices.
In simple words, Jenkins is employed for development and Rundeck, for operations. Both tools share certain common features as the job interface provided is for self-service.
Jenkins can handle the builds for the continuous integration cycle of development and triggering of Rundeck is required to control distributed orchestration across the deployment. Plugins are available for the integration of Jenkins with Rundeck. When we define a job in Jenkins, we can specify the task to trigger a job after checking certain job execution status.
In the same way, if the Jenkins admin privileges are given to Rundeck, it can access the job artifacts. Thus, the Rundeck can take the artifacts from Jenkins job and can trigger the deployment. Rollback mechanism with Rundeck works well when a deployment does not work as expected. We can choose any saved artifacts from Jenkins as deployment artifacts.
Install Rundeck on your local machine, start administrating your repetitive tasks with simple jobs or commands and experience it yourself!
