Ubuntu equivalent of CentOS success / failure

I think the functions you are looking for are sourced from /lib/lsb/init-functions, and named log_success_msg and log_failure_msg:

$ . /lib/lsb/init-functions
$ log_success_msg foo
 * foo
$ log_failure_msg foo 
 * foo

In this output, the first * is grey, the second is red (error case). Not extremely colorful, just enoug to get the point across...

From /lib/lsb/init-functions:

[ ... ]

log_success_msg () {
    if [ -n "${1:-}" ]; then
        log_begin_msg $@
    fi
    log_end_msg 0
}

log_failure_msg () {
    if [ -n "${1:-}" ]; then
        log_begin_msg $@ "..."
    fi
    log_end_msg 1 || true
}

[ ... ]

You could use the functions provided by the lsb-base package in /lib/lsb/init-functions. I have seen init.d scripts sourcing that file and then using the functions within, such as log_end_msg:

$ (. /lib/lsb/init-functions; log_end_msg 1)
   ...fail!
$ (. /lib/lsb/init-functions; log_end_msg 0)
   ...done.

For example, a snippet from /etc/init.d/ssh (case for start):

if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile /var/run/sshd.pid --exec /usr/sbin/sshd -- $SSHD_OPTS; then
    log_end_msg 0 || true
else
    log_end_msg 1 || true
fi