The Marionette Collective aka. mcollective is a framework to build server
orchestration or parallel job execution systems.

Mcollective's primary use is to programmatically execute actions on clusters of
servers. In this regard it operates in the same space as tools like Func,
Fabric or Capistrano.

By not relying on central inventories and tools like SSH, it's not simply a
fancy SSH "for loop". MCollective uses modern tools like Publish Subscribe
Middleware and modern philosophies like real time discovery of network
resources using meta data and not hostnames. Delivering a very scalable and
very fast parallel execution environment.

The focus is on catering to the needs of enterprises and large deploys.
Pluggable Authentication, Authorization and Auditing capabilities sets it apart
from other tools in this space.