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A usable solution - however not the best
What do you like best about the product?
Having config files you can version control is a brilliant plus. It lets teams collaborate and keep track of their playbooks.
What do you dislike about the product?
The tooling is built in python and in my experience very flakey. Running playbooks is very unintuitive and there's a fairly large barrier to entry.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Provisioning applications and machines. Ansible allowed us to automate this.
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Really Enjoy Ansible
What do you like best about the product?
The syntax is very easy, I typically use YAML for all of my application configuration so I'm happy Ansible uses YAML.
It's great that I can run playbooks against servers just over SSH, I don't have to install any agents on the remote servers.
I like how everything just describes what the desired state is and it works idempotently.
We had previously worked with Chef and Puppet and Ansible by far has been the easiest for us to get up and running.
We started out with configuration generated by http://phansible.com/ which helped us get up and running quickly.
It's great that I can run playbooks against servers just over SSH, I don't have to install any agents on the remote servers.
I like how everything just describes what the desired state is and it works idempotently.
We had previously worked with Chef and Puppet and Ansible by far has been the easiest for us to get up and running.
We started out with configuration generated by http://phansible.com/ which helped us get up and running quickly.
What do you dislike about the product?
We had a developer running on Windows and we were unable to get it working. Had to jump through some hoops to get that developer onboard.
We tried using Cygwin which is what tutorials on the net suggested, but we were unable to get it to work. We were using it with Vagrant so it's possible it's an issue with Vagrant and Ansible on Windows. This developer was able to get Vagrant running with Puppet.
We tried using Cygwin which is what tutorials on the net suggested, but we were unable to get it to work. We were using it with Vagrant so it's possible it's an issue with Vagrant and Ansible on Windows. This developer was able to get Vagrant running with Puppet.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Initially, it was only for configuring vagrant development boxes. Recently we've started experimenting with using it to configure our VPSs. It's coming along very nicely.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Ansible has been great for us. It can be tricky if you have developers using Windows. We are a PHP shop so we found the site http://phansible.com/ to be a great asset to get a starting set of configuration.
Have worked on Ansible
What do you like best about the product?
Ansible is an IT automation tool. We used it in our Openstack environment to deploy VMs and configure the system. It is written in python so makes it easier to work with. It is also easy to install on the workstation or laptop or even on another VM.
What do you dislike about the product?
Havent worked deeply on Ansible to figure out the downfall of the tool.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We use ansible in conjunction with Vagrant to deploy Openstack environment and also VMs in that environment using a software instead of manually deploying it. It is a very powerful tool which helps in automating the task and hence helps in reducing the human errors.
Configuration Management - Ansible
What do you like best about the product?
Easy to use and very efficient way to work in a team. Bring lots of productivity with this tool.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing to dislike, but as the new technology evolves, this tool needs to be upgraded.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Telecommunications. Configuration management is the benefit I have realized.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Configuration Management
Great for configuring Mesos cluster nodes
What do you like best about the product?
- no agent required, as long as you can establish SSH - it works
- flexibility to run with a dedicated server or with workstations
- allows separation of leader and agent tasks into separate .yaml files that can be called using conditional checks in the main.yaml (control file)
- very readable and powerful template engine
- flexibility to run with a dedicated server or with workstations
- allows separation of leader and agent tasks into separate .yaml files that can be called using conditional checks in the main.yaml (control file)
- very readable and powerful template engine
What do you dislike about the product?
- DNS lookup facility has a python library dependency
- the DSL to use dig lookup to do a reverse lookup is not very readable; it's more readable and reliable to local-exec dig
- need to maintain an inventory of your machines
- the DSL to use dig lookup to do a reverse lookup is not very readable; it's more readable and reliable to local-exec dig
- need to maintain an inventory of your machines
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We have been able to automate the configuration of our Mesos cluster nodes. Prior to this, configuring Mesos nodes was very manual and error-prone. Now we can provision the nodes with Terraform and configure them in a few minutes rather than going through hours of configuration.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Ansible works really well for cattle-type deploys meaning when you need automation/configuration management to build up infrastructure that will be torn down and rebuilt when updating. If you intend on your CF to converge your configs, probably Chef or Puppet works better. In our use case when we upgrade or run into problems, it's quicker for us to destroy the instances in question and reprovision/reconfigure. For this use-case, Ansible works really well.
Simplest configuration management tool available out there
What do you like best about the product?
Ansible is an open source solution that makes configuring infrastructures an easy task for sysadmins. In the contrary to other configuration management tools, Ansible is very simple to get started with and it lowers the entry barrier to automation, all you need to write playbooks is a text editor. One of the powerful features of Ansible is that it is agent-less, which means there is no need to install any software on remote systems (especially your client's systems) in order to automate a task (installing a software stack) on these machines. Also, Ansible relies on the SSH protocol while other automation tools use their own protocols that may need special firewall ports to be opened. Furthermore, Ansible can be easily used with tools like Vagrant to automate the provisioning of development environments on local machine.
What do you dislike about the product?
The main drawback is the absence of an open source graphical interface for Ansible that make it easy to monitor the entire inventory. Ansible only provide an command line utility and the only GUI solution available seems to be Ansible Tower which is an enterprise solution. Ansible was recently bought by RedHat so this may raise questions on the direction the project will take in future.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We switched from Chef into Ansible to exclusively automating the provisioning of platforms on AWS (and other Cloud providers) and configuring application stacks for our clients. The stack range from RoR (Ruby on Rails) to Django web applications; to database management and clustering. The switching wasn't very painful, and Ansible helped us quickly writing new automation tasks. Furthermore, we gained a lot from the ability to use Vagrant along with Ansible in order to replicate production environment into the developer's machines and having a huge boost in terms of productivity, detecting bugs and fixing them quickly.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Ansible has excellent performance, it has no need for installing any agents on remote systems. it's based on python which is a well known language for scripting especially among the sysadmin community. Ansible is the way to go if these properties fit in your day-to-day requirements.
Linux Automation
What do you like best about the product?
I love, that Ansible is Python based and provide very flexible way to configure any part of host configuration and it is free. I've widely used Ansible to deploy and configure various application in Linux. The great benefit, that Ansible does not require any agent and use ssh (you have to sort SSL related query on PRD). One more great advantage is that playbooks has defined structure and there are tons of addons in galaxy source.
What do you dislike about the product?
As Ansible is Python based, it is very much sensitive to code. So you should have exact number of spaces in each line or Ansible will fail.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Environment deployment Automation, preparing different changes on installed software, using templates for configures.
With Ansible we can follow Configuration as a Code conception and made our changes more predictable and easy to verify.
With Ansible we can follow Configuration as a Code conception and made our changes more predictable and easy to verify.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
test playbooks prior execution on using available feature
Config Management for the Rest of Us
What do you like best about the product?
Ansible is simple:
It works with Python and uses SSH on Linux + UNIX systems. Write YAML "playbooks" and run them any platform you need. We use it on CentOS, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu - but Windows works as well.
What do we use Ansible for?
To deploy configuration to many systems, to stand up web applications we use, to backup files and data, to secure services on our servers, and much more.
Modules exist for every service or application you can think of. Would you like to manage KVM with Ansible? Can do! Want to manage your ssh keys across multiple employees? No problem!
The Ansible Galaxy site has many playbooks where you can learn by example. There are also hundreds of playbooks freely available to be forked on GitHub.
It works with Python and uses SSH on Linux + UNIX systems. Write YAML "playbooks" and run them any platform you need. We use it on CentOS, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu - but Windows works as well.
What do we use Ansible for?
To deploy configuration to many systems, to stand up web applications we use, to backup files and data, to secure services on our servers, and much more.
Modules exist for every service or application you can think of. Would you like to manage KVM with Ansible? Can do! Want to manage your ssh keys across multiple employees? No problem!
The Ansible Galaxy site has many playbooks where you can learn by example. There are also hundreds of playbooks freely available to be forked on GitHub.
What do you dislike about the product?
I think there's a bit of a learning curve with Ansible as far as writing the playbooks out. There's a large gap in my mind between a simple playbook that maybe configures one service or hardens a server, and a super complex playbook that can manage applications at a large scale. It takes time and planning and most importantly TESTING. We test our playbooks a lot because one variable can make a difference between a success or a disaster.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We use it to stand up new servers, setup new applications, deploy a new service to more than one machine in your fleet. Can also use it to copy config files or other important things between the 'master' (even though Ansible is designed so you don't need one).
Recommendations to others considering the product:
I would read the documentation and get completely buried in everything it can do.
Deploy machines in AWS
What do you like best about the product?
Ansible is extremelly easy to use. The project organization is clear, the AWS Dynamic Inventory works great.
What do you dislike about the product?
Only the paid version has slave tracking and allows pulling. It would be great to see ansible providing a free alternative to Puppet and Salt.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Deploy and manage a large set of machines in AWS
Can't live without it now that I use it - Use it for Orchestration of deployments and new buildouts
What do you like best about the product?
The YAML syntax is so easy that anyone can use it. No more excuses from people that they are not a coder, they can now declaratively define their infrastructure via code just by knowing YAML. It allows me to version control my infrastructure now that it is defined by code.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes the data structures available seem limiting but once you really learn the tool, it all comes into focus. The documentation can be limited for the modules but you can always read the source code as its just python and really easy to read and understand.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Reduce the lead times when provisioning new complex multi-tier stacks from Linux VM's to load balancer VIP's and SSL certification installations.
I also rely on Ansible for deployments of multi-tier application from my CI/CD server (Bamboo). Ansible is available on the Bamboo server so the deployment playbook gets version controlled alongside the app's source code and is executed by Bamboo/Ansible at deploy time. I also rely on Liquibase for DB schema evolution which is also executed by Ansible.
I also rely on Ansible for deployments of multi-tier application from my CI/CD server (Bamboo). Ansible is available on the Bamboo server so the deployment playbook gets version controlled alongside the app's source code and is executed by Bamboo/Ansible at deploy time. I also rely on Liquibase for DB schema evolution which is also executed by Ansible.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Start with the community edition and see if its enough before purchasing Ansible Tower. Remember to always version control your playbooks.
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