Ambari looks nice from the outside but it&#x27;s some kind of zombie that is full of os-specific stuff, opaque puppet stuff, python, java and even brings nagios and ganglia to the party. If it works it&#x27;s probably fine, have fun debugging that stuff through.<p>We are happy with <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;saltstack-formulas&#x2F;hadoop-formula" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;saltstack-formulas&#x2F;hadoop-formula</a> and PXE booting an image.<p>You can configure all aspects out of a single pillar file.<p>Still full of warts but at least you have full control.