Ansible

New year, new role, new strategy…2023 is officially the year when I return to my roots. Back in 2014, I officially became part of the Ansible community. Admittingly, back then my focus was solely on figuring out how to best demonstrate to my ... [More] customers the power of having a OpenStack private cloud. Anyone who has ever stood up or experimented with OpenStack knows that this is a tall order. Imagine having to stand up that platform over and over again on a daily basis. My focus was to find a way—a tool—that could help me do that, so I could focus on helping solve the customers' true challenges. Fast forward to now, and the decision to do it with Ansible still stands as the best choice hands down. [Less]

YOU are the community New year, new role, new strategy...2023 is officially the year when I return to my roots. Back in 2014, I officially became part of the Ansible community. Admittingly, back then my focus was solely on figuring out how to best ... [More] demonstrate to my customers the power of having a OpenStack private cloud. Anyone who has ever stood up or experimented with OpenStack knows that this is a tall order. Imagine having to stand up that platform over and over again on a daily basis. My focus was to find a way---a tool---that could help me do that, so I could focus on helping solve the customers' true challenges. Fast forward to now, and the decision to do it with Ansible still stands as the best choice hands down. Many of you have stories just like mine. You are seeking out a way to simplify your daily tasks, so you can focus on the business. Just like me, you have decided that Ansible is the tool to do it. Before I started in this new role, I did some reflecting on my experience as part of the community. I have so many encouraging, positive, and fun stories I could share. Our community is truly amazing. The level of collaboration and desire to help are out of this world. Even with all those positive vibes, at times I would question whether or not I was giving back on the appropriate level.  Looking back now, I understand better the dynamics of a community and understand that those of us who are consumers are just as valuable as the contributors. This realization sparked some further ideas about inclusiveness---the feeling of truly belonging. I asked myself the questions "Who makes up our community?" and "Do they know they are a pivotal part of the community?" Hence the title of our blog today, YOU are the community. Each and every one of us who love and use Ansible are an integral part of the community, and I'd like to share a vision for our shared future.  That vision consists of: A strong and focused mission Rally the community around desired work streams by creating a centralized space to attract more community involvement and accelerate their impact. Cultivation of inclusiveness Harvest the wide knowledge of the community to further create an environment of independence and assist in crafting ways of working that resolve disagreements and dissolve roadblocks quickly. Inspiration, creativity, and collaboration Encourage sustained focus and shared problem-solving, remove boundaries, and support all ideas (no idea is too impossible). An understanding that failure is not fatal Try new approaches, create new capabilities, and identify inflection points quickly---then pivot when needed. More frequent recognition of success Call out, reward, and celebrate the wins of the community members often. We formed the strategy for the community from these tenets...big shout out to Greg Sutcliffe and Carol Chen for leading that charge. This strategy will help all of us stay focused to deliver the capabilities needed to uphold the vision. Over the next months, expect to see new tooling introduced to the community to foster better collaboration, increase overall upstream participation, and put the well-deserved spotlight on those of you who are doing great work on a daily basis.  While these capabilities are being put in place, it feels like a good time to remind each of you that your voice matters. We absolutely need and want you to have a seat at the table. Some of you may be asking yourself "How can I help?" or may even be doubting if you are actually part of the community. So I want to debunk any doubts early, right here...right now. YOU are the community...our community consists of many different personas, such as contributors, users (which very much includes customers), partners and vendors. Each persona brings different value. Contributors You know who you are. These are our keyboard warriors who are actively contributing to any of the many Ansible-focused projects. Whether it is a simple PR to suggest better execution output or something very complex like fixing a Core runtime error, you are all contributors. Learn more about becoming a contributor. Users I was, and still very much am, in this category. There is no shame in that at all! For those of us who are using Ansible on a daily basis or rely heavily on it to solve some sort of business need, we are Ansible users. There is so much value in what users can offer to a contributor and vice versa. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform users are also very much part of the active user community. Please know this, and I challenge you to connect with the contributors in the community. I think you will find a lot of benefit in that as you both are working through complex automation use cases. Learn how you can help. Partners and vendors These are our long-standing and foundational members of the community. They have brought multiple levels of much-needed integration into the Ansible project. They also assist with customers to help drive automation adoption---and truly innovate. To our partners and vendors: your participation in the community brings a huge impact to the current community, and you open the pathway for those joining us in the future.  No matter which category you count yourself in, know that YOU are part of the Ansible community. Thank you for helping make Ansible what it is. I can't wait to see what the rest of 2023 has in store for all of us. Also, be sure to subscribe to the Bullhorn for live updates and our progress on developing a new community web presence. No matter what, know that we are all in this together. Let's "Automate as One."  [Less]

Learn about Edge Automation at Red Hat Summit and AnsibleFest 2023 As you may have heard, AnsibleFest will be taking place at Red Hat Summit in Boston May 23-25. This change will allow you to harness everything that Red Hat technology has to offer in ... [More] a single place and will give you even more tools to address your automation needs. Join Ansible and automation-focused audiences to hear from Red Hat and Ansible leaders, customers, and partners while getting the latest on the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product roadmap, community projects, and what's coming in IT automation. Across every industry, automation at the edge is enabling emerging use cases by helping organizations drive the next wave of innovation as they explore and execute digital transformation initiatives. Organizations are looking to extend a consistent automation experience across cloud, datacenter, and edge with the ability to scale in heterogeneous environments. Red Hat Ansible provides a common platform where organizations can build, run, and manage the entirety of their highly distributed systems, even to remote locations where network connectivity may be intermittent. Because we understand how important edge automation is to teams looking to automate their entire IT landscape with a single platform, we have lined up some great sessions at AnsibleFest and Red Hat Summit: Success at the edge starts with automation Bringing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to the industrial edge Red Hat: Modernizing the industrial manufacturing world How to gain a sharper business edge at UPS scale Building the next-generation Rail Server at the edge with Swiss Federal Railway Streamlining edge operations with Ansible: An automation case study Accelerating retail Day 2 operations with new Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ansible Automation capabilities Automating application delivery at the edge Network and security automation at the edge AI in manufacturing: Red Hat and Intel build a foundation for production-ready AI/ML environments 5G and edge: Open networks transform industries Deploy any workload on Red Hat Device Edge Do you have questions about edge automation with Ansible? Bring them to AnsibleFest and Red Hat Summit, and take advantage of the experts at the Ansible booth, the Edge booth, and the Ask the Expert area. We will also be running different labs throughout the event, so this is the perfect opportunity to get hands-on experience while being able to ask questions in real time to Ansible experts. These labs include: Writing your first Ansible Playbook Security-focused capabilities for edge device management Event-Driven Ansible and NetOps automation Advanced capabilities of automation controller in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Please refer to the session catalog for the most up to date room assignments; sessions subject to change. Looking for more edge automation content? We have you covered. Check out these resources to learn more about how network automation with Ansible can help you: Experience self-paced interactive hands-on labs with Ansible Automation Platform Register for AnsibleFest at Red Hat Summit Read IDC paper: Edge growth drives need for automating the last mile Check out the Edge Automation playlist on YouTube [Less]

As you may have heard, AnsibleFest will be taking place at Red Hat Summit in Boston May 23-25. This change will allow you to harness everything that Red Hat technology has to offer in a single place and will give you even more tools to ... [More] address your automation needs. Join Ansible and automation-focused audiences to hear from Red Hat and Ansible leaders, customers, and partners while getting the latest on the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product roadmap, community projects, and what’s coming in IT automation.  [Less]

As you may have heard, AnsibleFest will be taking place at Red Hat Summit in Boston May 23-25. This change will allow you to harness everything that Red Hat technology has to offer in a single place and give you even more tools to address ... [More] your automation needs. Join Ansible and automation-focused audiences to hear from Red Hat and Ansible leaders, customers, and partners while getting the latest on future Ansible product updates, community projects, and what’s coming in IT automation.  [Less]

Cloud computing has become an essential factor in IT transformation and business innovation. The highly dynamic nature of cloud environments, where new resources are constantly being added and removed, poses new challenges. One of the main ... [More] challenges organizations face is the lack of visibility into the cloud environment. As cloud computing continues to grow in complexity, it can be challenging to keep track of all the different resources and applications that make up the infrastructure. This lack of visibility can make it difficult to maintain security policies and configurations, making the infrastructure vulnerable to attacks. [Less]

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At AnsibleFest 2022, we announced a new addition to the content ecosystem offered through the platform which is Ansible validated content. Ansible validated content is use cases-focused automation content that is packaged as Collections that ... [More] contain Ansible plugins, roles and playbooks that you can use as an automation job through Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. [Less]