Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Get enterprise framework for building and operating IT automation at scale, from networking to operations KEY FEATURES ● Efficient application deployment using Ansible playbooks, content creation, and containerized workflows. ● Use Hybrid cloud environments with Kubernetes for scalable containerized applications. ● Get Architectural insight into Ansible Automation Platform. ● Dashboard management with Ansible Tower dashboard for efficient platform administration. DESCRIPTION This book equips you to revolutionize operations across Cloud Infrastructure, Applications, Networks, Containers, and Security. From foundational concepts to advanced strategies, the readers will navigate Ansible Automation intricacies, covering architecture, syntax, and installation scenarios, including single-machine setups and high-availability clusters. Authentication mastery encompasses Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) and external authentication, ensuring a secure user management foundation. System administration intricacies, such as metrics, logging, performance monitoring, and backup strategies, are explored, providing readers with holistic insights. Application deployment takes center stage in this book, emphasizing creating Ansible playbooks and content, automating deployment processes, and managing container applications. The book explores hybrid cloud environments, integrating Ansible with Kubernetes to manage applications across major cloud providers. The concluding chapter encapsulates key learnings, offering a reflective mastery of the Ansible Automation Platform. This guide provides practical skills for designing, deploying, and orchestrating end-to-end automation. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN ● Automate security patching for enhanced system uptime and resilience. ● Orchestrate multi-cloud deployments with unified playbooks for consistent and efficient control. ● Apply RBAC for secure collaboration and auditable workflows. ● Integrate metrics and logs for actionable insights and optimized automation workflows. ● Implement granular user roles and permissions for access control and team collaboration. WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR This book is for IT operations teams, Automation engineers, DevOps engineers, Sysadmins, Software development teams, and cloud management teams with prior knowledge of the basics of Ansible. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Getting Started with the Ansible Automation Platform 2. Ansible Automation Platform Architecture 3. Platform Installation Scenarios 4. First Steps 5. Settings and Authentication 6. IT Operations 7. App Deployments 8. Hybrid Cloud and Kubernetes 9. Automate IT Processes 10. Wrap-Up

Among the many configuration management tools available, Ansible has some distinct advantages—it’s minimal in nature, you don’t need to install anything on your nodes, and it has an easy learning curve. This practical guide shows you how to be productive with this tool quickly, whether you’re a developer deploying code to production or a system administrator looking for a better automation solution. Author Lorin Hochstein shows you how to write playbooks (Ansible’s configuration management scripts), manage remote servers, and explore the tool’s real power: built-in declarative modules. You’ll discover that Ansible has the functionality you need and the simplicity you desire. Understand how Ansible differs from other configuration management systems Use the YAML file format to write your own playbooks Learn Ansible’s support for variables and facts Work with a complete example to deploy a non-trivial application Use roles to simplify and reuse playbooks Make playbooks run faster with ssh multiplexing, pipelining, and parallelism Deploy applications to Amazon EC2 and other cloud platforms Use Ansible to create Docker images and deploy Docker containers

Explore Ansible Automation Platform and understand how the different pieces interact to standardize and scale automation Key FeaturesCurated by a senior consultant at Red Hat with real-world examples to maximize use of Ansible Automation PlatformUse roles and modules to create interactive playbooks in Ansible Automation PlatformDiscover best practices for simplifying management of Ansible Automation PlatformBook Description While you can use any automation software to simplify task automation, scaling automation to suit your growing business needs becomes difficult using only a command-line tool. Ansible Automation Platform standardizes how automation is deployed, initiated, delegated, and audited, and this comprehensive guide shows you how you can simplify and scale its management. The book starts by taking you through the ways to get Ansible Automation Platform installed, their pros and cons, and the initial configuration. You'll learn about each object in the platform, how it interacts with other objects, as well as best practices for defining and managing objects to save time. You'll see how to maintain the created pieces with infrastructure as code. As you advance, you'll monitor workflows with CI/CD playbooks and understand how Ansible Automation Platform integrates with many other services such as GitLab and GitHub. By the end of this book, you'll have worked through real-world examples to make the most of the platform while learning how to manipulate, manage, and deploy any playbook to Ansible Automation Platform. What you will learnGet the hang of different parts of Ansible Automation Platform and their maintenanceBack up and restore an installation of Ansible Automation PlatformLaunch and configure basic and advanced workflows and jobsCreate your own execution environment using CI/CD pipelinesInteract with Git, Red Hat Authentication Server, and logging servicesIntegrate the Automation controller with services catalogUse Automation Mesh to scale Automation ControllerWho this book is for This book is for IT administrators, DevOps engineers, cloud engineers, and automation engineers seeking to understand and maintain the controller part of Ansible Automation Platform. If you have basic knowledge of Ansible, can set up a virtual machine, or have OpenShift experience, and want to know more about scaling Ansible, this book is for you.

Ansible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server--or thousands.

Learn the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform with some real-life examples. As an expert in Ansible automation with over a decade of experience, I can confidently say that the Ansible Automation Platform is an excellent solution for automating IT infrastructure management. The installation process is straightforward and requires key steps to ensure successful implementation. The first step in installing the Ansible Automation Platform is setting up the necessary dependencies, which include installing Python and its related libraries. These dependencies are essential to the proper functioning of the platform, and it is crucial to ensure that they are installed correctly. Next, the Ansible Automation Platform packages are installed, which include the control node, the managed node, and the web-based interface. The control node executes Ansible playbooks, while the managed nodes are Ansible-managed systems. The web-based interface provides a user-friendly interface for managing Ansible operations. It is essential to ensure that the control node and managed nodes are correctly configured to prevent any operational issues. This includes setting up access control and security measures to protect sensitive information. One of the key benefits of the Ansible Automation Platform is its compatibility with various operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. This allows for greater flexibility in deployment and ensures that the platform can be implemented in virtually any environment. In conclusion, installing the Ansible Automation Platform is a critical step in automating IT infrastructure management. By following the proper installation procedures and configuring the platform to meet the organization's specific needs, the Ansible Automation Platform can greatly enhance productivity and streamline IT operations.

Learn how to work with the Automate feature of CloudForms, the powerful Red Hat cloud management platform that lets you administer your virtual infrastructure, including hybrid public and private clouds. This practical hands-on introduction shows you how to increase your operational efficiency by automating day-to-day tasks that now require manual input. Throughout the book, author Peter McGowan provides a combination of theoretical information and practical coding examples to help you learn the Automate object model. With this CloudForms feature, you can create auto-scalable cloud applications, eliminate manual decisions and operations when provisioning virtual machines and cloud instances, and manage your complete virtual machine lifecycle. In six parts, this book helps you: Learn the objects and concepts for developing automation scripts with CloudForms Automate Customize the steps and workflows involved in provisioning virtual machines Create and use service catalogs, items, dialogs, objects, bundles, and hierarchies Use CloudForm’s updated workflow to retire and delete virtual machines and services Orchestrate and coordinate with external services as part of a workflow Explore distributed automation processing as well as argument passing and handling

Use Red Hats security tools to establish a set of security strategies that work together to help protect your digital data. You will begin with the basic concepts of IT security and DevOps with topics such as CIA triage, security standards, network and system security controls and configuration, hybrid cloud infrastructure security, and the CI/CD process. Next, you will integrate and automate security into the DevOps cycle, infrastructure, and security as code. You will also learn how to automate with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform andabout hybrid cloud infrastructure. The later chapters will cover hyper-converged infrastructure and its security, Red Hat Smart Management, predictive analytics with Red Hat Insights, and Red Hat security auditing to ensure best security practices. Lastly, you will see the different types of case studies with real-world examples. Red Hat and IT Security will help you get a better understanding of IT security concepts from a network and system administration perspective. It will help you to understand how the IT infrastructure landscape can change by implementing specific security best practices and integrating Red Hat products and solutions to counter against modern cybersecurity threats. You will: Understand IT infrastructure security and its best practices Implement hybrid cloud infrastructure Realign DevOps process into DevSecOps, emphasizing security Implement automation in IT infrastructure services using Red Hat Ansible Explore Red Hat Smart Management, predictive analytics, and auditing.

Operators are a way of packaging, deploying, and managing Kubernetes applications. A Kubernetes application doesn’t just run on Kubernetes; it’s composed and managed in Kubernetes terms. Operators add application-specific operational knowledge to a Kubernetes cluster, making it easier to automate complex, stateful applications and to augment the platform. Operators can coordinate application upgrades seamlessly, react to failures automatically, and streamline repetitive maintenance like backups. Think of Operators as site reliability engineers in software. They work by extending the Kubernetes control plane and API, helping systems integrators, cluster administrators, and application developers reliably deploy and manage key services and components. Using real-world examples, authors Jason Dobies and Joshua Wood demonstrate how to use Operators today and how to create Operators for your applications with the Operator Framework and SDK. Learn how to establish a Kubernetes cluster and deploy an Operator Examine a range of Operators from usage to implementation Explore the three pillars of the Operator Framework: the Operator SDK, the Operator Lifecycle Manager, and Operator Metering Build Operators from the ground up using the Operator SDK Build, package, and run an Operator in development, testing, and production phases Learn how to distribute your Operator for installation on Kubernetes clusters