Ansible is an open-source tool supported by Redhat since 2015. Ansible gives the ability to configure multiple servers from one single location. So instead of having to go into each server and manually configure them, we can automate the tasks on those servers from a single server.
Say we are having multiple QA boxes and we have to install Java and related application configurations on all the boxes.
Without ansible: We have to go to each QA box install Java manually and add the configurations manually.
With ansible: We can automate the installation of java and configurations from a single server. We don’t have to log in to each QA box to install and configure.
There are different alternatives to ansible such as puppet, chef, and salt but ansible is often times regarded as a simpler tool to use for any beginners.
Why ansible is simpler ?
- Ansible uses YAML to describe our automation jobs. YAML is very easy to learn because it looks a lot like plain English.
- Ansible is light-weight which means it doesn’t require a lot of computer resources to run.
- Ansible only requires ssh access to run commands on the servers that it manages compared to the alternative tools which require installing agents on all those servers in order to communicate with them.
Advantages of ansible
- Ansible is agentless, we don’t have to install agents on the client machines.
- Ansible is a greatly secured tool as it uses OpenSSH as the secure transport protocol.
- We don’t have to do repetitive things on each client machine. We write a script on the server machine and run it on all the clients.
- Jobs can be scheduled so that they can run automatically at a given time.
- Ansible helps to reduce the potential of human errors while letting us scale quickly to handle demand and automate application deployments.
- Using ansible we can write scripts that we have to automate and run countless times on different servers.
Ansible has a free version available but if we need access to more advanced features there is a paid version that provides features like
- Ansible dashboard with real-time monitoring
- Multi playbook workflows
- Scheduling jobs etc
In this article, we have covered what is ansible, why it is simpler, and what are the advantages of ansible. I hope you found this article interesting and valuable. Please share this article with your friends and help me grow. If you are having any concerns or questions about this article please comment below. If you want to get in touch with me please visit the Contact Me page and send an email.