Ansible is an agentless automation solution created in Python. It links to your clients through SSH and enables you to automate tedious repetitive tasks. Further, it permits you to convert a one-hour long manual task into a single command that finishes in minutes. In this way, the software boosts your performance and productivity, and helps you focus on priority projects.
Ansible uses a global language to unravel the riddle of how work gets accomplished. It enables you to convert tough processes into repeatable playbooks. With one button push you can deploy organization-wide protocols.
Ansible empowers you to automate app deployment and system management. Resolve issues once and share the outcomes with all. Produce a culture of automation to eliminate silos. Integrate and automate your existing technologies.
As mentioned above, Ansible is agentless, which eliminates the need to install any application on your servers to use it. You can set up the platform in just minutes. Moreover, you can easily create a playbook using only your computer and the product’s online documentation. A playbook is a list of tasks that you can run on one or multiple servers. Your DevOps team is sure to love Ansible’s simplicity and ease of use.
Ansible believes that playbooks (which may be for application deployment, server orchestration, or server provisioning) should be declarative. Therefore, to write a playbook you don’t need any knowledge of the server’s current state, just its desirable state.
Ansible allows you to reuse your deployment automation scripts by utilizing tags. This means you can use the script when implementing a new version of an app as well as when you are provisioning new servers that host that application. The tags permit you to annotate plays or tasks. You can decide which group of tasks will be performed by defining which tags should be skipped or run.
You can easily extend Ansible’s capabilities by deploying custom modules. To create a custom module, you can utilize Ansible’s helper tools from common tasks and focus on the core logic of your module. In this way, you can swiftly create and release the custom modules you want.
Ansible is backed by a reliable and vibrant open source community with over 700 contributors and more than 10,000 commits. The vendor has introduced Ansible Galaxy which is a library with ready-to-use roles that are shared by the community members. Anyone can review and use these roles. Further, Ansible Galaxy hosts greater than 450 roles that are utilized and shared by over 3,300 members.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is offered in two editions with different features and support levels. Pricing is based on the number of nodes (hosts, systems, VMs, instances, devices, or containers) that you are managing.
For enterprise IT processes
For mission-critical DevOps
Note: Discounts are offered for larger volumes, multi-year purchases, and academic institutions.
You can avail a free trial of Red Hat Ansible Tower and try all its features.