Ansible

When we manage a large number of virtual machines (VMs), we want to reduce the differences between them and create a standard template. By using a standard template, it becomes easier to manage and propagate the same operation on the ... [More] different nodes. When using VMware vSphere, it is a common practice to share a standardized VM template and use it to create new VMs. This template is often called a golden image. Its creation involves a series of steps that can be automated with Ansible. In this blog, we will see how one can create and use a new golden image. [Less]

Reproducibility and consistency are two key traits that are the driving forces behind the popularity of containers. Consistency is also a principle found within Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. With only a few lines of YAML-formatted ... [More] manifests, thousands of instances can be set up and configured uniformly. While the management of target instances is simple, it is the control node, or where the Ansible execution is initiated, that can  be the most challenging aspect. As Ansible is written in Python, does the machine have the correct version of Python installed?  Are the necessary Python modules installed? Are there any operating system dependencies needed? The list goes on and on. [Less]

When managing infrastructure, there are times when a dynamic inventory is essential. Kubernetes is a perfect example of this where you may create multiple applications within a namespace but you will not be able to create a static inventory due to Kubernetes appending a systems-generated string to uniquely identify objects. 

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 features an awesome new way to scale out your automation workloads: automation mesh.  If you are unfamiliar with automation mesh, I highly recommend reading Craig Brandt’s blog post What's new: an ... [More] introduction to automation mesh which outlines how automation mesh can simplify your operations and scale your automation globally.  For this blog post, I want to focus on the technical implementation of automation mesh, what network ports it is using and how you can secure it.  [Less]

Nelson, the director of operations of a large manufacturing company, told me that he has a highly leveraged staff. That is, most of the work on the company's critical cloud project is being done by consultants and vendors, and not by their ... [More] team members. Unfortunately, much of the staff’s time is spent making sure that the infrastructure as code (IaC) implementation is in compliance with the standards and policies that his company has for cloud resources. Nelson said, “Oftentimes the code works, but doesn’t conform to naming conventions, or is missing labels, or has security issues, which impacts downstream workflows and applications. We need the environment to conform to our policies, and I don’t want my staff burning cycles to ensure that this is the case.” This was the reason why he brought me in to run a proof of concept (POC). The POC would validate what would become a Policy as Code solution based on one of the common IaC products.   [Less]

With Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2  and the advent of automation execution environments, some behaviors are now different for. This blog explains the use case around using localhost and options for sharing data and persistent data storage, for VM-based Ansible Automation Platform 2  deployments.

 

With the recent release of the ansible.netcommon Collection version 3.0.0, we have promoted two features as standard: libssh transport and import_modules. These features provide increased performance and resiliency for your network ... [More] automation. These two features, which have been available since July 2020 (libssh) and March 2021 (import_modules), are now turned on by default for playbooks running the latest version of the netcommon Collection, so let's take a look at what makes these changes so exciting! [Less]