Microsoft automates to achieve more with Ansible
What is Ansible
Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code.
Ansible has an agentless architecture, which means that instead of having to install software on all the remote machines, Ansible can directly access the machines and execute tasks using the built-in services of those machines. For example, for Linux and Unix machines SSH is used to connect to the machine, while for Windows hosts Windows Remote Management is used3.
Ansible provides the following capabilities4:
- Provisioning; setting up the environment and resources
- Configuration management; managing configuration files
- Application deployment; deploying the application with human-readable playbooks
- Continuous delivery; creating a CI/CD pipeline
- Security automation; using modules, roles and playbooks to automate security in the system
- Orchestration; combining all different configurations and automation tasks into one (orchestrated) whole
Why Ansible?
Working in IT, you're likely doing the same tasks over and over. What if you could solve problems once and then automate your solutions going forward?
Ansible is here to help.
Complexity kills productivity
Every business is a digital business. Technology is your innovation engine, and delivering your applications faster helps you win. Historically, that required a lot of manual effort and complicated coordination. But today, there is Ansible - the simple, yet powerful IT automation engine that thousands of companies are using to drive complexity out of their environments and accelerate DevOps initiatives.
Challenge
Microsoft needed to address increasing complexity across their corporate network infrastructure—comprised of tens of thousands of endpoints—that connects Microsoft locations worldwide.
Their issues were compounded as code created by development and engineering teams was not version-controlled or peer-reviewed, leading to duplication and quality issues.
Solution: Build a culture of modern development
Using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and working with Red Hat Consulting, Microsoft created a standardized, centralized network automation environment that reduces routine, repeatable tasks and complexity.
In the past, they had to manually do the same deployment again and again. With Ansible, they can create blueprints to deploy it multiple times. And every time we deploy, it’s exactly the same
Results: Establish collaborative, creative development mindset
By focusing on people, process, and technology, Microsoft has evolved its automation journey from manual scripting and changes to a continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) approach supported by a centralized, service-based architecture.
Their DevOps teams can now focus on sharing knowledge, building skills, and creating innovative technology solutions
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