Ansible

Ansible is an open-source automation tool, or platform, used for tasks such as configuration management, application deployment, task automation, and IT orchestration. It aims to provide large productivity gains to a wide variety of automation challenges.

Developed by Red Hat, Ansible is popular in the DevOps community and among system administrators for its ease of use, simplicity of its playbooks, and agentless architecture.

Ansible uses a simple syntax written in [[YAML]] called playbooks. Playbooks describe the automation jobs in a human-readable format, making it easy for even those not familiar with the underlying technology to understand.

Unlike other configuration management tools, Ansible does not require any agent software to be installed on the nodes it manages. Instead, it uses [[Secure Shell|SSH]] or [[Windows PowerShell|PowerShell]] to connect to the nodes, reducing the management overhead and potential security vulnerabilities.

Ansible can be used to automate the configuration of systems, ensuring that they are all set up consistently and in compliance with specified requirements. It allows automated deployment of applications in a consistent manner across various environments, reducing human errors and speeding up the deployment process.

Ansible works with Linux/Unix, Windows, and other platforms, making it versatile for managing a wide range of systems. Routine and repetitive tasks such as system updates, user management, and service monitoring can be automated, saving time and reducing the chance of errors.

Ansible comes with a library of modules that can be executed directly on remote hosts or through playbooks. Users can also write their own modules and plugins. Ansible can define complex workflows to orchestrate the configuration, deployment, and update processes across multiple systems.

It manages inventories in simple text files (though dynamic inventories are also supported), which list the nodes in the systems to be managed.