What is automation??

Automation means the use of multiple technologies to perform the given tasks without any human interventions.

World before automation.

Before automation, the system administrator used to manage many tasks like software installations, updates, OS updates, patching, etc.

But as the number of servers was increasing, it used to be very difficult to manage this huge number of servers.

Therefore, to tackle such situations, automation has come into play.

What is configuration?

Configuration is the minute detail of the machine. It refers to how the machine is setup, which includes software, hardware, and networking. Having the correct configuration is a key factor for the overall performance of the machine.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is the trending open-source tool that is widely used for automations. It deals with the configuration management and plays an important role in deployments and orchestrations.

History of Ansible :

Michael DeHaan introduced Ansible in feb 2012
Started gaining popularity due to its agentless architecture in 2013-14
Acquired by REDHAT in 2015
Because of support from Redhat, ansible has been evolving and has become a more popular option in industry

Features of Ansible:

Open source IT configurations tool
Works on push mechanism
Provides direct connection with nodes. No need of any mediator between master and its nodes
Uses YAML scripting language
Helps in managing 1000s of servers
Redhat took over Ansible
Redhat has introduced a GUI which is known as Ansible Tower
Ansible can be used whether your servers are on-premise or in cloud

Advantages of Ansible :

No agent is needed to be installed on client servers
Supports simple, human-readable yaml language
It can deal with multiple OS platforms (Redhat, Ubuntu, Windows, Debian, etc.)
Provides great security with the use of SSH and encryption
Can be integrated with other IT tools easily.
Can manage thousands of servers without any issues
Strong community support
It has dynamic inventory, which helps in gathering information about the infrastructure changes.

Disadvantages of Ansible:

Errors are not shown in detailed manner. Therefore, it takes time to understand the errors.
Although the Ansible is easy to understand, one has to spend some time for its learning.
Handling extremely large infrastructure can be challenging with Ansible. Use of tools like Ansible-Tower is recommended.

Conclusion :

Ansible is a great tool for starting your automation journey. The person with a basic understanding of Linux administration and shell scripting can easily grab the insight about the Ansible architecture.

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Basic understanding of Ansible