Exported resources provide a way for a system to declare a resource, but not necessarily realize it. They are designed to allow nodes to publish information about themselves to a central database (PuppetDB), so that another node can collect the Puppet resource and realize it on the system. Exported resources primarily provide a way to create an infrastructure that is aware of other infrastructures in your environment. They provide the most value for an infrastructure that must eventually converge with information from an infrastructure that has been dynamically created by an automated process.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Virtual and exported resources
• Some use cases