Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform : your station for effortless playbook journey !!!

“If music be the food of love play on”

If IT automation is what you are looking at , then think of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform !!

Like any posts of mine , this too is a reflection of my own thoughts and viewpoints without being influenced by any organization or individual.

Typically when we think of automation we can broadly categorize them as a. ) IT automation

b.) Business Process Automation

c.) and Robotic Process Automation .

My tryst with both IBM and Red Hat technologies have made me to understand that there are technology stacks available with both IBM and Red Hat to cater to all the three categories with trust , ease and confidence .

However let’s look at only IT automation today and how Ansible is revolutionizing the automation landscape today . Automation is evolving and getting matured every single day .

I don’t want to drag you till the end of this blog and then have you to start reading it all over again with another cup of coffee . The idea is simple . Provide you with a crisp , fit for your purposeful mind and just the required
tid-bits that’s enough to start planning your roadmap if you have IT automation in mind .

Across several discussions among stakeholders such as partners , engagement leaders , customers we keep hearing about their bewilderment among which flavour of Ansible to choose from .

Yes you heard it right !! “Which flavour of Ansible ?” What are those flavours ?

We have :
i.) Community Ansible
ii.) AWX
iii.) Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Let’s explore each one of them to gain more clarity .

What is community Ansible ?

Community Ansible is “Community” Ansible . It is open-source , free , does not incur a license cost and remains unsupported .

What is AWX ?

AWX is also “Community” Ansible but with many GUI and API layers built on top of community Ansible . So t, his is a web executable version of community Ansible . This also lacks enterprise support .

What then is Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform ?

Red Hat Ansible Automation is the enterprise supported Ansible , but that does not speak a lot about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform . Let’s see where can we apply community Ansible and where can we apply Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform .

Consider an enterprise where the IT automation roadmap entails
a.) small scale automation

b.) has less unique and straightforward automation use cases such as common configuration management automation or database operations automation etc.

c.) does not need security to be mandatorily infused as part of the automation

d.) has a fleet of between 100–500 servers

f.) does not need to get operated across hyperscalers

g.) and more importantly can bear with the challenge of running the automation projects without getting thwarted by the risks of not getting timely support for patching , upgrading or bug fixes .

If that’s your landscape then you can perhaps manage with community Ansible . That’s not all . In addition to what I just said “productivity” is
a very significant factor that you would like to factor in . If you have a workforce skilled with programming languages or you can spend the time to hire them from the market that’s required not only to deliver automation solution but also to support the production issues of bug fixing , patching , upgrading etc. then you can possibly go for community Ansible .

Now let’s flip the page and see how the world changes when you have access to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform .

Consider an enterprise where the IT automation roadmap entails

a.) large scale automation

b.) has very dynamic automation use cases

c.) needs security to be mandatorily infused as part of the automation

d.) has a fleet of more than 1000 servers

e.) has a need to get operated across hyperscalers

f.) needs integrated analytics that offer deeper insights to gauge the performance of the infrastructure components being provisioned through automation

g.) needs automation to drive event driven architectures

h.) and wants to be productive right from Day 2 and get all timely enterprise support for patching , upgrading or bug fixes .

If that’s your landscape then you should have Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform in your roadmap . That’s not all . If you want to write Ansible playbooks in least time and not have your development team spend a considerable time on the learning cum knowledge curve then you can have Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed with watsonx Code Assistant guide you at every step on how to write flawless and complex playbooks for a myriad of use cases , then the best option that you can opt for is Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform .

You not only save time but reduce manual errors and boost innovation and productivity across your business units .