How industries are solving challenges using Ansible

What is Ansible?

We can simply say that this tool is used for automation purposes with the help of computer networking. The basic tasks that are done from these are configuration management, application development, provisioning, etc. Automation is crucial these days, with IT environments that are too complex and often need to scale too quickly for system administrators and developers to keep up if they had to do everything manually. Ansible has its own language of programming i.e. YAML. The file extension is .yml. This tool is an emerging tool and it is been used by millions of people.

1. ARISTA CLOUD NETWORKING

Arista’s software-driven cloud networking model is helping to redefine cloud architectures as data centers adapt to achieve better agility and economy. Arista enables the use of standard provisioning and automation systems such as Ansible through our open Linux approach, bringing Net-Ops and Dev-Ops unification.

Integrated Solution

Arista has been committed to open standards and to modern software from the inception of the company. We believe that innovation within these frameworks drives customer success and permits our customers to build true multi-vendor networks. Our customers want choices, not proprietary lock-in.

Arista Networks and Ansible have partnered to bring the strength and agility of Ansible to your network. Arista is built on extensibility and continues to leverage third-party integrations like Ansible to help you get the most out of your switch.

• Arista modules leverage the syntax of the running configuration - mirroring the syntax with which most network engineers are familiar.
• Ansible can communicate with your Arista switch using CLI or eAPI. The CLI-based connection utilizes SSH to securely manage your device.
• Leverages existing EOS CLI or TACACS users which provides built-in authorization.
• Add vEOS instances and a build tool like Jenkins to create an end-to-end continuous testing solution.
• Arista EOS modules include eAPI, command, config, and template.

Solution Benefits

The combined Ansible and Arista solution provides:

• Improved speed and accuracy
• No third-party EOS extensions required
• No additional switch configuration required
• Complete control of your configuration with idempotency built-in
• Make intelligent, dynamic decisions in your playbooks
• Enables continuous compliance of EOS configuration
• 
  

2. Windows

With Ansible’s native Windows support, you can, out of the box:

• Gather facts on Windows hosts
• Install and uninstall MSIs
• Enable and disable Windows Features
• Start, stop, and manage Windows services
• Create and manage local users and groups
• Manage Windows packages via the Chocolatey package manager
• Manage and install Windows updates
• Fetch files from remote sites
• Push and execute any PowerShell scripts you write

You can connect to and automate Windows using local or domain users, and soon you’ll be able to use Windows ‘runas’ support to execute actions as the Administrator, just as you would use ‘sudo’ or ‘su’ on Linux.

3. CISCO ENABLES DevOps

As customers embrace the DevOps model to accelerate application deployment and achieve higher efficiency in operating their data centers, the infrastructure needs to change and respond faster than ever to business needs. These changes can help you achieve an agile operational model by improving on automation, innovation, and consistency.

The Cisco Nexus platform allows you to easily:

• Integrate your applications into your customer's existing DevOps tools chain
• Improve flexibility in installing and deploying whatever protocol package or custom applications you need on the switch
• Get open and full access to switch resources and data

Integrated Solution

The feature-richness in Cisco Nexus NX-OS combined with the scaling and performance capabilities enable customers to build efficient data centers.

The Ansible integration with Cisco Nexus platforms enables customers to take advantage of programming and automating the infrastructure at scale with speed.

Ansible accelerates Day 0, 1, and 2 operations in the following ways:

• Day 0 – Automates device bring up
• Day 1 – Push network configurations to maintain consistency across the infrastructure
• Day 2 – Optimizes network compliance and operation

Solution Benefits

The combined Ansible and Cisco solution provides:

• Speed IT Transformation
• Leverage Open Ecosystem
• Efficient Operational Model
• Faster Adoption
• Improve Speed and Agility

4. AWS

Using Ansible to automate your applications in AWS greatly increases the chances that your cloud initiative will be a success. The breadth of AWS capability enables IT organizations to dynamically provision entire workloads like never before. To harness this power, IT organizations must effectively answer:

• How can we control cloud deployments?
• How does DevOps work in the cloud?
• Will my deployments be secure?
• How can we migrate existing apps to the cloud?

The answer? Automate with Ansible.

Manage Cloud Like Cloud with Ansible

When you deploy an application into AWS, you will soon realize that the cloud is much more than a collection of servers in someone else's data center. You now have a fleet of services available to you to rapidly deploy and scale applications. However, if you continue to manage AWS like just a group of servers, you won’t see the full benefit of your migration to the cloud. Ansible automation can help you manage your AWS environment like a fleet of services instead of a collection of servers.