So at this point in my multi-vm explorations, it’s pretty clear I’ll need some configuration automation beyond provisioning. Sometimes you just need to shut down and restart services across a bunch of machines in a certain order. SSHing into each one and doing it by hand is now sufficiently painful to consider how the pros do it.
Capistrano has the advantage of getting me deeper into Ruby. Fabric, based on Python, means an easier learning curve. Choices, choices.