Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Reviews

The beauty of Ansible is the easy ramp-up to get started.  You really only need Python and SSH access. Configuration is generally done in YAML, which is easy to understand, and there is a progression from ad hoc tasks, to playbooks, then to roles, which means you can start with one server and continue building up to datacenters worth of servers with the same methodology. Also, shared by most configuration management tools, the idea of creating a desired state scales better than trying to specify procedural steps to set up new hosts. There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master).

There is some overhead in setting up the initial playbooks, but it now takes less time to set up 10 servers than it did to configure one in the past. Also, the setup is consistent because there is not the concern that someone forgot to copy/paste a config line or run another command. Whatever is in the playbook gets done.

Because Ansible is establishing SSH sessions to perform tasks, there is a limit on scalability. Speed and the sheer number of open connections start to become issues past a couple hundred servers. There are some workarounds, but that is a key area for improvement. Ansible could also improve support for private package repos, to ensure that new batches of servers are getting the same package versions as earlier batches.

I have been using Ansible for about two years.

SSH is pretty good, but it was not designed for the access pattern of hundreds of connections out of configuration targets. Other tools solve this with a listening agent process, so the initial connection to configure is much faster.

I have not used customer service. Ansible is well established, so there is plenty of documentation, examples, and third-party resources.

Manual configuration and "Golden" templates for virtual machines were used.  The former is tricky to maintain consistency with. The latter seemed to require constant updating and it did not help maintain the configuration of already installed servers.

Initial setup boils down to installing Ansible and ensuring you have SSH access to a target that is running Python. Standard packaging is available on major Linux distros to install some level of Ansible. I recommend following instructions on Ansible's site to get the latest stable release as they have been improving rapidly.

Not applicable.

Although Red Hat has an enterprise add-on to manage Ansible through a web application and offers commercial support, I have not used it. Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible. AWX will probably be required in most shops for the RBAC functionality. With AWX, non-admins can be limited to perform some tasks, but not be allowed free reign with Ansible.

Salt (or SaltStack) is a similar tool, but does have an agent. There are other tools like Chef or Puppet that use languages other than Python. Ansible was chosen based on these characteristics and the others were not evaluated after this initial choice.

I like Ansible because it is:

• Easy to use.
• Easy to read.
• Easy to maintain.
• Easy to support.
• It works without an agent.

It has made software installation and updates much easier. Tasks including changing or checking configurations and files have been improved especially considering the big scope of servers.

It could work with a larger number of servers.

I've been working with Ansible since v0.7 and still use v2.2.

We only encountered issues with syntax, as sometimes it was changed and then one has to adapt.

There were a few scalability issues. I had no problems as long as the number of servers was less than 500. When the number of servers has exceeded 500, I encountered an increased number of failures when trying to provision all together. I tried to play with forks, timeouts, and other options, but as the number of servers grew, I got more failures, so I had to provision smaller groups.

I haven't yet used it.

I used bash scripts before, but bash is not idempotent and you should write more code whereas Ansible already has them as a module. Ansible gives you an informative report after each task.

It was easy to install and easy to use.

I use the free version with Jenkins, it's enough for my needs.

We did not evaluate other options.

It should work easily.

• Agentless architecture, relying on SSH only.
• Great documentation.

Provision and configure from nothing on Amazon.

Speed but it only can go as fast as SSH does.

6 months

No.

A little slow.

Used S before.

Switched because of coworkers and even if I find SaltStack easier to learn, the documentation of Ansible made me choose it over Salt.

Not at all, just need to have general knowledge of SSH.

Open source.

The simplicity of the programs is the best part and the fact that there is no need to install clients on your hosts makes it unique compared to other orchestration tools.

We can now go to a customer and deploy all software in a few minutes instead of hours.

It's a young product so there is still room for improvement on the module side. There are about 150 modules at the moment but there are still many missing.

For a couple of months

Deployment is easy, it cannot be any easier.

The software is so small and well written that there are no stability issues. At the moment there is a new update every 2 months so if there is an issue with a bug it will be fixed in the next release.

It scales from a few up to 1000's of servers so does it scale - YES!

Customer Service: No idea. It's so simple and there is so much support on the internet that so far I have had no need to look for support.Technical Support: People at Ansible have been very nice to me so far even without a support contract. I get pointed to the help boards to get answers to my questions by their support staff.

We use all kinds of solutions like puppet, chef, .... Why do I like Ansible more? Ansible is easier, it makes use of yaml, and templating is done with jinja2. With other solutions there is a steeper learning process. Ansible is so easy that it takes you only a few minutes to get going. Where other solutions are more for programmers, Ansible is made for system engineers without any need to program or script in any language derivatives. Ansible puts all the intelligence in the modules.

Setup is easy. Every distro has packages available and if you have a weird distro that hasn't one, you can install it easily with python pip or download it from github.

We installed it in-house. It is so simple for an IT person that with the online documentation that it should be easy to set you up in minutes.

The product is free, at least if you make use of the command line version. There is also a graphical version that has some extra features in reporting, etc. Here the price depends on the number of clients you want to manage. For us the cost was the time it took to learn the product which was only a day or two.

Puppet, Saltstack, Chef

If you are looking for something easy straight to the point for a non programmer this is what you need!!

We are using the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for storage and for confirmation management. We are using a template in VMware.

The solution can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise.

The most valuable features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are the agentless platform and writing the code is simple using the Yaml computer language.

There are some options not available in the community edition of the solution.

I have been Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for approximately eight months.

I rate the stability of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform a nine out of ten.

We have approximately five people using the solution in my organization.

I rate the scalability of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform a nine out of ten.

I have not used the support from the vendor.

The initial setup of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is simple.

We did the implementation of the solution in-house.

I am using the community edition of the solution which is free.

I rate Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform a ten out of ten.

We mostly use Ansible as a configuration management, application deployment, and VM provisioning tool.

I like that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is easy to use.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better.

Complex data structures and control flow need improvement.

I've been using it for one year.

It is a stable solution.

It is scalable.

The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution. Infrastructure maintenance of the Master server comes at a cost.

If you want to do server provisioning, don't go for Ansible. However, if you want to do server/network device configuration, application deployment, or configuration management, then Ansible is the best solution for you.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform at eight on a scale from one to ten.

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