As technology evolves at breakneck speed, enterprises face immense pressure to deliver software faster, maintain security and compliance—all while managing complex IT environments.
For around two decades, the Progress Chef platform has emerged as a trusted partner for organizations looking to automate infrastructure, reinforce security policies and accelerate application delivery.
For developers and practitioners within the DevOps community, the Chef platform is more than just a tool—it’s a catalyst for innovation, efficiency and collaboration.
From Fortune 500 companies to agile startups, the Chef solution’s automation-first approach drives measurable improvements in efficiency, security and developer productivity.
In this blog, we look into the evolution of Chef and will discuss the integrated platform approach for a better future for our customers and the community.
Progress Chef – How It Evolved
Chef was originally founded in 2008 as an automation company to make life easier for developers and system administrators with its Chef Infra product.
Over the years, the scope of automation has expanded. Today, the Chef automation solution for infrastructure and applications takes you from development to production.
The Chef solution is known for its enterprise-grade automation, security, compliance and orchestration capabilities, helping organizations manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) at scale. It enables businesses to automate configuration management, reinforce security policies and maintain regulatory compliance through tools like Chef Infra, InSpec and Habitat.
Unlike general-purpose automation tools, Chef stands out with its Policy-as-Code approach, providing deep security integrations and real-time visibility via Chef Automate.
Enterprises rely on Chef to streamline DevOps workflows, reduce operational complexity and maintain consistency across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Its strong focus on continuous compliance and security enforcement makes it a preferred choice for organizations needing automation and governance in highly regulated industries.
However, over the years, we have felt the need to build an integrated platform that combines all Chef capabilities during our interactions with multiple customers. An integrated Chef platform provided a potential solution to solve pain points for our customers.
Additionally, we also discovered the need to streamline complex workflows in the DevOps ecosystem, which was a consistent and key topic in our customer conversations. Practitioners either resorted to third-party tools that didn’t fit well into the Chef ecosystem or created home-grown orchestration solutions that didn’t scale well.
There has been a consistent demand for a ‘Chef’ solution that could tie DevOps processes together to create streamlined workflows. Based on this feedback, we embarked on a journey to provide job orchestration automation as a solution underneath the Chef umbrella.
This led us to create an enterprise-grade integrated infrastructure automation platform including all Chef capabilities specifically designed for a unified user experience.
What is the New Chef Platform and Why Are We Building It?
The release of the Progress Chef platform marks the beginning of the next generation of the Chef product. This new server architecture is designed as the long-term consolidation point for all Chef server features, unifying SaaS and on-premises deployments under the same scalable, service-oriented architecture.
The Chef platform is built to scale flexibly, accommodating small to mid-sized organizations while supporting the largest global deployments. Its initial release brings advanced job orchestration capabilities to the Chef ecosystem, enhancing operational efficiency and automation.
In addition to the orchestration benefits, Node Management simplifies the management of Chef fleets at scale. This service removes much of the undifferentiated heavy lifting involved in lifecycle maintenance, node enrollment and agent/client management. By automating these tasks, the Chef platform allows customers to focus on high-value activities rather than manual operations, significantly reducing operational burden.
The new Chef platform adds foundational services, marking significant changes in role-based access controls, security and auditing. It also introduces private licensing services that reduce deployment complexity while streamlining license management.
Chef Cloud: The Cloud Platform With All the Chef Capabilities
The release of the Chef platform paves the way for the future growth of Chef by setting a scalable, flexible foundation designed to meet evolving customer needs while consolidating disparate Chef server features into a unified solution. The platform also has a cloud version called Chef Cloud.
Chef Cloud is a simple, easy-to-use and completely managed solution that simplifies IT for customers by removing maintenance, version upgrades and security update pains. The Chef Cloud platform is a robust solution that provides job orchestration and node management capabilities and delivers DevSecOps capabilities, fleet and job management and other essential services—all within a single, user-friendly platform.
Here are some of the benefits of Chef Cloud:
- Accelerated Time-to-Value: Chef Cloud removes the hassle of installations, allowing users to start benefiting immediately.
- Simplified Scalability: Organizations can effortlessly scale their operations, including multi-environment support.
- Unified Orchestration and Node Management: A single, cohesive platform enables streamlined management of all resources.
- Reduced Operational Costs: With hosting and management handled by Progress, Chef Cloud helps minimize operational expenses.
Customer Impact: Why It Matters?
The new Chef Platform has a workflow engine to execute varied jobs in compliance and infrastructure management:
- Proactive Infrastructure Security: Chef Cloud enables organizations to regularly scan, audit and remediate infrastructure, maintaining fleet protection with certified industry compliance profiles such as CIS, SOC2 and others.
- Effortless Job Orchestration: Users can quickly create composable jobs using shell scripting and prebuilt skills to develop entire playbooks capable of coordinating existing DevOps tools.
- Secure Application Deployment: Applications can be safely built, packaged and deployed from a fully cloud-native, zero-trust platform.
- Seamless Asset Discovery: Chef Cloud facilitates effortless asset discovery across existing Chef environments, other products (like the Progress WhatsUpGold software) and even custom CMDB and monitoring solutions.
- Expansive Partner Ecosystem: Organizations can leverage Chef premium content, industry-leading contributions from OSI and MITRE and easily extensible formats that require no specialized expertise.
The Future Ahead
The Chef platform is a leader in automated infrastructure and compliance management, with a rich history and ongoing innovations like Chef Cloud for its customers. Customers can now easily get started and derive value from using the Chef Cloud solution. The new platform boasts an intuitive UI, which makes it an easy to use platform for infrastructure needs.
In the coming months, watch this space to learn about the numerous features being added to the Chef Cloud platform. With a powerful consolidated cloud-based platform, we hope you will leverage it to grow your business.