Ansible on CentOS 10

My main use case for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform  is managing servers through automated deployment, automated management, security patching, and everything in between.

For automating deployments or security patching with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform , we use it for Docker  Swarm clusters. We install Docker  and automate Docker deployment inside the Docker Swarm, checking which are the master nodes and which are the server nodes and connecting them to each other. All of these things are maintained by Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

I have around 100-200 servers that we need to maintain through security patching. We need to perform sudo apt update or install packages inside them and maintain those servers. For that, we use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. We maintain an inventory file and execute everything from there.

The best features that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers is that it does not require any additional resources inside the servers. Python is the only requirement, and since Python is already present inside the servers, we can run it from our location and it automatically deploys things and does the work for us.

The minimal requirements and easy deployment have definitely impacted my daily work and my team's efficiency. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is one of the best features that we depend on. We have evaluated other options, but Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was the best choice because it has saved us a tremendous amount of time. We do not need to manually intervene in the servers or install third-party software to maintain these things.

It is very easy to write playbooks for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible Galaxy  contains many playbooks that are readily available and ready to be used. It is highly configurable with Jinja templating, making it easy to maintain.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has positively impacted my organization. Previously, we needed to go into the servers and maintain them manually, which used to take a lot of time. For 200 to 300 servers, the maintenance took about one to two months. New patches would arrive and we would have to repeat the process. Now, it is a one-night work or a 10 to 15 minutes task. We write a playbook, maintain an inventory, and roll out the updates and it starts working for us. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses conditional clauses and has rollback options, functioning like a standard coding language that is simple to use.

There is definitely a reduction in errors with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because we have playbooks written with all the necessary clauses and rollback options. Manual work automatically creates more errors, whereas in automation, we have written sets that we do not forget every time we run it. We have protected written sets that we execute consistently.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could benefit from improvements in certain areas. Red Hat Tower  is available for enhanced functionality, though it operates on a paid model. I found that acceptable.

Otherwise, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very easy to use with Jinja templating capabilities that make it really straightforward. I do not believe there is anything that could be improved with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform that we have not already discussed.

I have been using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for the past eight years.

In my experience, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very stable.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is highly scalable. We are currently using 200 servers and we are adding more servers each day. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is easily maintainable and highly scalable.

We are not using Ansible Tower  for customer support, so we do not receive official support. However, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has a large community with many written blogs and resources available, making it easy to maintain.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There is no pricing and no licensing required, as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is always free to use. If you do not use Ansible Tower, then it is definitely free and easy to maintain. Writing playbooks is just like writing a simple Bash script or writing code with clauses and everything.

I have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. We need fewer employees and have saved significant time. The work that previously took two months now takes 10 to 15 minutes. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is automated, so we do not need as many employees to perform manual work. We have fewer employees, which also results in cost savings.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There is no pricing and no licensing required, as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is always free to use. If you do not use Ansible Tower, then it is definitely free.

Before choosing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, I evaluated other options such as Chef  and Puppet , but I did not use them.

The advice I would give to others looking into using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is that it is one of the best Ansible management tools available for servers. You should start using it. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers Jinja templating where you can write your own templates and NGINX  configurations. It is very simple to use and you do not need any extra server or additional infrastructure. I give this product a rating of 9 out of 10.

I have created resources for the monitoring tech stack with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform , especially for setting up one master data center and another data center for different applications routed to the monitoring setup, where I have created Splunk servers and installed all Splunk agents and prerequisites with the help of Ansible , including an Ansible playbook.

I have used the agentless architecture in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, as SSH is agentless.

I use a centralized automation controller in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, called the master setup, where we execute our commands with installed prerequisites, inventory information, and the Ansible playbook, managing other node servers with a passwordless setup.

When creating any server with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, it is a significant advantage because if we set up a Splunk agent in one case, it is necessary for each server. By writing the playbook, the agent is installed immediately during server provisioning, providing us with an edge.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very helpful due to passwordless integration and the ability to interact with multiple servers at once, which is especially advantageous when dealing with thousands of servers.

The integration aspect of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has optimized my IT ecosystem significantly by consolidating multiple tools, such as a CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins , where we validate everything, including testing and SonarQube code quality.

The agentless architecture of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, using the SSH key, makes it passwordless and allows us to push configurations with one click, creating a major advantage.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's main benefit is that it allows us to push configurations to multiple servers without manually visiting each one, maintaining efficiency.

I have observed that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could improve by creating modules for upcoming AI and ML tech stacks, as currently, specific modules for these are not available.

I have worked on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, especially Ansible Playbooks, for around three years.

I have not encountered any performance issues, crashes, downtimes, or limitations with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Ansible is a Red Hat product, so they provide all necessary support.

I have not escalated any questions to the Red Hat support team regarding Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, as their modules are professional and complete.

Positive

Both Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Chef  have similar capabilities but differ in architecture; one is agentless while the other is agent-full.

Setting up Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on the AWS  cloud is very straightforward; I take one server, install Ansible, set up the inventory, and use it.

By using the enterprise version of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, we receive support that aids in overcoming challenges, a measurable benefit in terms of ROI.

For enterprise users of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, there are fees, but it is free and open-source for testing or small labs.

I have worked with Chef  as a configuration management tool for one project, and I have used Chef and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform together in the same project.

I have worked on the AWS  cloud with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was hosted on AWS.

I prefer Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because it is easy to implement, and the extensive supporting documentation is very helpful.

I suggest everyone consider Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because it is agentless, easy to implement, and has sufficient supporting documentation available.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform a ten out of ten.

They are using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform  for infrastructure automation and cloud automation. The platform is used for CI/CD automation, deployment, and automation. The main use is infrastructure automation.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform  is easy to integrate. The platform is simple to use.

The dashboarding capabilities should be improved by bringing CMP  (Cloud Management  Platform) into Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Event-Driven Ansible is very important in the platform. Both Event-Driven Ansible and cloud management platform features are crucial improvements needed.

We have been using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform since 2018, which is more than seven to eight years.

The stability of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is excellent, deserving a 10 out of 10 rating.

The technical support is not adequate. The Ansible sales and technical support services need significant improvement.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comes with a high price point. Even though we use the platform, we need additional dashboarding tools because the complete infrastructure as code dashboard capability is missing.

Red Hat introduced a new product called Red Hat Developer Hub for platform engineering. While Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very good for automation, deserving an 8 out of 10 rating, the cost of combining Red Hat Developer Hub and Ansible is extremely high, which presents a significant challenge with the Red Hat product.

In AWS , customers are increasingly using Terraform  rather than Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This is particularly true for cloud-based operations on AWS .

The choice between solutions depends on the situation. Developers tend to be more inclined towards Terraform , while infrastructure teams prefer Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

We are still actively working with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Customers typically purchase directly from Red Hat for on-premise deployments, while those on public cloud buy from the marketplace.

We are recommending the solution to users as a Red Hat partner.

This review rates Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform a 10 out of 10.