There are a number of information systems inside of Salt. Grains are defined on the minions that use them, while pillars are defined on the master. When files inside pillar_roots are used, they may take advantage of templates and other modules in the renderer system. External pillars are also available that can give access to dynamic remote sources. Some of those external pillars, such as git_pillar, provide a virtual filesystem that behaves like pillar_roots, even allowing templating abilities.

SDB can be used to obscure data from configuration files. While it may look secure, there are very few situations in which it can actually be treated as a completely secure storage mechanism. Its power lies in two areas: being able to remove sensitive data from configuration files so that they can be safely stored in plaintext or revision control and being simple to use.

SDB and pillars overlap in some areas of functionality, but not all. With some exception, SDB tends to be more useful for...