Ansible on CentOS 10 Hardened

The main use case for Ansible on CentOS 10 is configuration management, as I have a fleet of servers, including web servers, backend Python servers, and Node.js servers, all configured using Ansible.

I have used Ansible for configuration management on various front-end servers and back-end servers, specifically for one SaaS product that we were building, an email-related product with a frontend in Node.js, a couple of Java back-end servers, an Elasticsearch cluster for metric data, and a monitoring layer using Prometheus and Grafana. All these servers were managed with Ansible for configuration management using dynamic inventory, with a staging setup of four or five servers and a production environment with 12 to 14 servers, as well as a smaller deployment on DigitalOcean with six servers.

I used roles in Ansible on CentOS 10, which helped me significantly by allowing me to carve out roles assigned to subsets of servers with similar use cases, along with templates such as Jinja for dynamically updating configurations on those servers. This approach improved my efficiency with Ansible in configuration management.

The impact of Ansible on CentOS 10 on my organization has been significant, with quick deployments as a configuration management tool aiding me considerably. I tried Puppet prior to Ansible, but its agent-based nature posed problems that Ansible avoids, allowing for quick turnaround times, reduced costs, and an easy learning curve with minimal setup requirements.

Regarding deployment, Ansible on CentOS 10 has helped me achieve faster deployment, especially when moving a setup of 14 to 15 bare-metal servers and VMs to DigitalOcean, which reduced my deployment costs to almost one-third of what I was spending on bare-metal servers. The quicker turnaround time in writing the Ansible playbook for this deployment allowed me to swiftly prototype my product on DigitalOcean.

One of the best features Ansible on CentOS 10 offers is dynamic inventory, and I particularly appreciate that Ansible is an agentless system. It operates over SSH, so I can include a server in one of the host inventory files and deploy it without needing pre-installed agents, whether in data center or cloud environments. Additionally, it is idempotent, meaning it only applies changes when necessary, saving CPU resources, and the templating and roles are excellent features I have used quite often in deployments.

I think the most important feature I use often is the module library in Ansible on CentOS 10, which has a very rich module library that has helped me significantly. I have not built any custom modules, but I frequently utilize roles for deploying sets of packages such as web servers, allowing minimized repetition when deploying across different environments.

The self-sufficient built-in modules are extremely beneficial. One of the latest use cases for Ansible was setting up base infrastructure on my Proxmox base servers using the module library, providing an excellent experience for both virtualized and physical servers.

Regarding how Ansible on CentOS 10 can be improved, I think further integration with other tools would be beneficial. While Ansible already integrates with Vault, integrating other HashiCorp tools would enhance its capabilities and allow for better interaction with other open-source tools.

I have used Ansible on CentOS 10 for close to three to four years.

Ansible on CentOS 10 is very stable for me. Earlier versions worked great, and the latest version continues to meet my needs effectively.

I have used Ansible on CentOS 10 effectively across 15 bare-metal machines, 50 virtual machines, and even larger setups with up to 100 servers, allowing me to scale operations across thousands of nodes in a private cloud setup.

I have not used customer support for Ansible on CentOS 10, but I believe it is good based on the resources available. I have resolved many issues through online blogs and community support instead of needing direct assistance.

I had used Puppet before switching to Ansible on CentOS 10, finding Puppet's agent-based system cumbersome due to the necessity for agent deployment, synchronization, and requiring a Puppet server, whereas Ansible allows straightforward deployment without needing a dedicated server.

I definitely see a good return on investment with Ansible on CentOS 10, as it saves substantial time during deployments with minimal setup costs thanks to its agentless nature, only requiring Python and SSH for server connections.

Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Ansible on CentOS 10, I utilize the open-source offering of Ansible, and there are no licensing fees associated with CentOS 10, making the cost minimal for me.

Before choosing Ansible on CentOS 10, I evaluated other options, primarily Puppet and Ansible, and while I have experimented with Nix, it is limited to NixOS and not applicable to CentOS, making Ansible the clear first choice during my transition from Puppet.

I would rate Ansible on CentOS 10 a nine out of ten, as there is always room for improvement.

I rate it a nine because Ansible is a full-fledged configuration management tool, but I take off one point specifically for the need for larger integration, as existing metrics related to deployment times could be beneficial in increasing efficiency.

In my organization, Ansible on CentOS 10 is deployed across private cloud, public cloud, and on-premises servers, proving to be fairly reliable from my experience.

I have used Ansible on DigitalOcean and Google Cloud for public cloud deployments, but I have not used it much on AWS since I primarily employed Puppet there.

My advice for others considering Ansible on CentOS 10 is to proceed with it. It is one of the best configuration management tools available, whether deploying on CentOS 10 or other Linux distributions.

My main use case for Ansible on CentOS 10 is automating the platform, managing applications, and deployment, mostly on the infrastructure side of things.

For example, we have multiple servers that we want to patch. Traditionally, we would log into each server and patch each one individually.

Through Ansible on CentOS 10, we can execute a single command that automatically patches all server groups.

Ansible on CentOS 10 has impacted my organization positively by making infrastructure management very easy. In a traditional approach, we would need to log into each server to patch, upgrade, or install applications.

Now, through a single command, these tasks are installed across all servers.

I have seen specific outcomes such as time savings. Patching used to be an entire weekend activity before, and now it takes less than an hour to complete.

Ansible on CentOS 10 makes automating infrastructure very easy. Ansible has been around for a long time, making it a very stable product that is widely known. It is open source, so there is not a lot of cost associated with it.

Any complicated configuration can be easily done, especially those with SSH. The fact that it is agentless means you do not need to install any software or daemons on the managed nodes, which is a major reason we use Ansible on CentOS 10.

I rely on all of these features, though this server patching is not something we do every day. It happens whenever there is a major patch or update that needs to be installed.

The major features most important for us are the declarative syntax, which makes it very easy to define the ideal system state we want, and the agentless architecture. Ansible on CentOS 10 handles achieving that state on its own. These two features are the standout features for us.

Ansible on CentOS 10 is already a very stable product. One potential improvement could be allowing Windows systems to be used as a control node, though this is not very relevant to our use case.

It is very easy to install, especially on CentOS. Ansible on CentOS 10 now allows us to query cloud providers to fetch currently running instances and inventory, so it is already at a very good level.

I have been using Ansible on CentOS 10 for more than two years.

Ansible on CentOS 10 is stable.

Ansible on CentOS 10 is very scalable. You can scale it to thousands of instances if you want.

Previously, we were doing server management manually.

I have definitely seen a return on investment. As I mentioned before, it has saved a lot of time.

IT-side activities, especially patching servers or installing applications, used to take a lot of time, possibly an entire weekend. Now, we can schedule these tasks and leave them to run without spending significant time on them.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very affordable, and I do not have any issues with that.

Before choosing Ansible on CentOS 10, we considered Terraform, but it does not provide the same functionality that Ansible on CentOS 10 does, so we see completely different use cases.

I rate Ansible on CentOS 10 a perfect ten out of ten because it performs the job that it needs to do.

I give it a ten because it is easy to work with and manage, especially because it is agentless and has a declarative syntax. You can ensure that a playbook can run multiple times with the same system state. Ansible on CentOS 10 does the job that we need it to do and is open source at a cost-effective rate, which gives it a ten out of ten.

My advice to others looking into using Ansible on CentOS 10 is that if your use case involves IT asset management, server management, infrastructure management, application management, or installing applications at scale, Ansible on CentOS 10 is the product for you. It can simplify these processes and save you a lot of money and time.

A concrete example of automation I have carried out with this tool is performing upgrades of different products on different environments, which allowed us to have the same configuration on all environments thanks to Ansible on CentOS 10, while minimizing the impact of human error on the configurations.

Ansible on CentOS 10 is a very powerful product for deploying configurations, product installations, or actions on different machines at the same time, and Ansible Tower complements it by adding the ability to create sequential action flows via Ansible on CentOS 10.

Infrastructure as Code with this tool has changed the way my team works by allowing us to have a sort of pseudo documentation in the code. Thanks to the code that is in Ansible on CentOS 10 in Git, it allows us to quickly understand and have a standard structure thanks to Ansible Galaxy. Even if a new team member joins our team, they are not lost thanks to the standard structure from Ansible Galaxy.

The positive impact this tool has had on my organization is that when there are bugs in an environment, it is very easy to reproduce the bug in a test environment because the configuration is the same. This has been a huge time saver to have identical (ISO) configurations between environments and thus to have the same behaviors and to reproduce bugs and to understand and debug them.

What led me to choose Ansible on CentOS 10 over Salt, Puppet, or Chef is its ease of installation, its fast compatibility with the SSH protocol, its simplicity in setting up and creating playbooks, the standardization of structures via Ansible Galaxy, and the fast integration if I purchase Red Hat's Ansible Tower.

I would suggest an improvement for interview processes to allow more response time because when there is a pause in the conversation for a few seconds, it feels as if moving to the next question occurs, so being more patient before moving to the next question would be beneficial.

I rate this product an 8 out of 10.