Recommendations to others considering Rudder:
Set it up, and slowly start doing what you always wanted to do (i.e. have a really great .bash_profile).
Keep in mind, since this is agent-based it is almost impossible (never say never) to lock yourself out. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What problems is Rudder solving and how is that benefiting you?
Built some very flexible infrastructures that adapt well no matter where deployed.
Ensure things aren't just provisioned, but kept OK all the time.
Allow people to easily change what they need in a place they understand.
Gather year-long statistics on system maintenance needs, and as such, be able to tell when everything is tidy, or how far we have move from that point. I am dumping that data into Nagios (Check_MK to be specific, and also into ElasticSearch. My dream is to have this full circle - I'm also collecting other data, including IPFIX metrix into the same ElasticSearch instance, and am just waiting for DARPA to come up with some cool aggregation technique for all-different data :-) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.