Ansible Control Node Server on Ubuntu 22.04

Ansible Server image maintained by Cloud Infrastructure Services. Ansible is an agentless automation tool that you install on a control node. From the control node, Ansible manages machines and other devices remotely (by default, over the SSH protocol). Unlike Puppet or Chef, you dont have to set up a client-server environment before using Ansible. You can manage multiple hosts from a central location.

Ansible is a radically simple IT automation system. It handles configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad-hoc task execution, network automation, and multi-node orchestration. Ansible makes complex changes like zero-downtime rolling updates with load balancers easy. Manage servers on Azure, other cloud platforms and on prem.

Why Choose Ansible on Azure?

Deploy your Ansible control node in minutes with our pre-configured Azure VM image. Automate your entire hybrid infrastructure from Azure - manage Azure VMs, on-premises servers, and multi-cloud environments from a single control plane. Get enterprise automation capabilities with the flexibility of open-source.

Ansible Use Cases

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Automate provisioning and configuration of Azure resources and hybrid environments
• DevOps & CI/CD: Integrate deployment automation into your development pipelines
• Configuration Management: Ensure consistent configuration across hundreds of servers
• Cloud Migration: Automate lift-and-shift or modernization projects to Azure
• Compliance Automation: Enforce security policies and compliance standards automatically
• Multi-Cloud Management: Manage resources across Azure, AWS, GCP, and on-premises from one platform

Azure Specific Benefits

• Azure Native Integration: Pre-installed Azure modules for managing VMs, Storage, Networking, and ARM templates
• Hybrid Cloud Ready: Seamlessly manage Azure Arc-enabled servers and on-premises infrastructure
• Cost Effective: No licensing fees - pay only for Azure compute resources you use
• Global Deployment: Deploy your control node in any Azure region worldwide
• Azure DevOps Integration: Ready for integration with Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions
• Secure by Default: Leverage Azure's security features including Key Vault integration

Ansible Features:

• Configuration Management - Easily manage all of your servers. Change the configuration of an application, OS, or device; start and stop services; install or update applications; implement a security policy; or perform a wide variety of other configuration tasks.
• Application Deployment - Make DevOps easier by automating the deployment of internally developed applications to your production systems.
• Orchestration - Ansible uses automated workflows, provisioning, and more to make orchestrating tasks easy
• Security and Compliance - Sitewide security policies (such as firewall rules or locking down users) can be implemented along with other automated processes
• Cloud Provisioning- You can provision cloud platforms, virtualized hosts, network devices, and bare-metal servers.
• Modules - Modules are like small programs that Ansible pushes out from a control machine to all the nodes or remote hosts.
• Plugins - Ansible comes with a number of its plugins, but you can write your own as well
• Inventories - All the machines youre using with Ansible (the control machine plus nodes) are listed in a single simple file, along with their IP addresses, databases, servers, and so on
• Playbooks - A playbook is like a recipe or an set of instructions which tells Ansible what work it has to do when it connect to new machine.
• APIs - Various APIs (application programming interfaces) are available so you can extend Ansible’s connection types

Ansible Control Node server support is from Setup Ansible Server on Azure

Disclaimer: This Ansible server image is maintained by Cloud Infrastructure Services and is not sponsored by or affiliated with Red Hat, Inc. Ansible is a registered trademark owned by RED HAT, INC. in the United States and other countries. and is licensed under GNU General Public license v3.0. No warrantee of any kind, express or implied, is included with this software.