Ansible is a simple IT automation engine that automates provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, orchestration, and many other IT needs. When building infrastructure its important to focus on delivering it using code. Once your infrastructure is built using code you can then take advantage of repeatable builds, deployments and audit all changes to your IT!
How does it work?
Ansible works by connecting to your nodes and pushing out small programs, called “Ansible modules” to them. These programs are written to be resource models of the desired state of the system. Ansible then executes these modules (over SSH by default), and removes them when finished.
Your library of modules can reside on any machine, and there are no servers, daemons, or databases required. Typically you’ll work with your favourite terminal program, a text editor (we recommend VSCode), and a version control system to keep track of changes to your content (We use Github for this)
What does it look like?
Below we have put together a simple example of what a Ansible playbook would look like. The playbook should be able to be run against any machine and instantly configure it as a web server. This is a simple example but you can see the the ease of doing something complex.
How can I get started?
Ansible has some great content available to get you going. Take a look here to create your first playbook.
Here is a great video that helps understand Anisble in under 3 minutes!
Drop us a message or give us a call and we will be in touch to help you gain a better understanding
Date: April 27, 2020
Author: Magnetar IT