Now that the Chef has reached the 1,000,000 downloads mark, OpsCode released a major update to the open source systems integration framework. It now includes a whole new lineup of features, and there’s a free two-month trial available to those who want to test one the Private edition of the software.

The tweaked-up Chef in turn features quite a few added capabilities that justify a trial.  Components written in the Erlang programming language have been introduced to realize a threefold increase in scalability, which is also credited to certain ‘proven relational database management system principles.’ In addition, OpsCode released an installer to go along with the framework, simplifying the process to a ‘one click deployment on most platforms.  Alongside the tool, a new set of plugins has also been released to achieve the same simplicity on public clouds.  OpsCode was one of the first companies to announce that its offering has been optimized for HP Cloud Services, so it’s no surprise it’s pursuing this angle.

There are a few other enhancements as well. For one thing, a ‘Dry-Run’ mode is now available to developers that want to test any changes before rolling them out, and Active Directory integration lets users access Windows environments.  Last but not least, native support for Solaris is also included in the latest version of Chef.

On top of all that, there’s the new trial too, coupled with free support for the entire duration:

Opscode released a free trial of Private Chef with a free 60 days of Opscode support. Users can access this free trial here. Private Chef provides all the benefits of Open Source Chef and delivers them as a “highly available, fully managed and supported automation software solution installed behind a user’s firewall.”