Practical Ansible: Learn how to automate infrastructure, manage configuration, and deploy applications , Second Edition

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Key benefits

Orchestrate major cloud platforms such as OpenStack, AWS, and Azure

Use Ansible to automate network devices

Automate your containerized workload with Docker, Podman, or Kubernetes

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Description

Ansible empowers you to automate a myriad of tasks, including software provisioning, configuration management, infrastructure deployment, and application rollouts. It can be used as a deployment tool as well as an orchestration tool. While Ansible provides simple yet powerful features to automate multi-layer environments using agentless communication, it can also solve other critical IT challenges, such as ensuring continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) with zero downtime. In this book, you'll work with the latest release of Ansible and learn how to solve complex issues quickly with the help of task-oriented scenarios. You'll start by installing and configuring Ansible on Linux and macOS to automate monotonous and repetitive IT tasks and learn concepts such as playbooks, inventories, and roles. As you progress, you'll gain insight into the YAML syntax and learn how to port between Ansible versions. Additionally, you'll understand how Ansible enables you to orchestrate multi-layer environments such as networks, containers, and the cloud. By the end of this Ansible book, you'll be well versed in writing playbooks and other related Ansible code to overcome all your IT challenges, from infrastructure-as-a-code provisioning to application deployments and handling mundane day-to-day maintenance tasks.

What you will learn

Explore the fundamentals of the Ansible framework

Understand how collections enhance your automation efforts

Avoid common mistakes and pitfalls when writing automation code

Extend Ansible by developing your own modules and plugins

Contribute to the Ansible project by submitting your own code

Follow best practices for working with cloud environment inventories

Troubleshoot issues triggered during Ansible playbook runs

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

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Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!

50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.

Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.

Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.

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A. Zubarev Jan 21, 2024

I have been trying to navigate the ever growing complexities of deployments automation and the IaC (even though it is not my primary task) for quite some time. My primary objectives are to create tested out, repeatable deployments and have them documented. Ansible is seemingly the perfect tool for that.I picked the electronic copy of Practical Ansible for being the most up to date with the latest advancements in it, and because it is a 2nd edition of the book from a mature duo of authors.The book is well structured starting with a gentle introduction to the philosophy of Ansible and its limitations to advanced coding (best practices included), but wait, there is even a chapter on Kubernetes!On the limitations side of the tool, be aware that even though Microsoft is fully committed to Python without which no serious automation is possible it requires knowledge of PowerShell. To add another, I realized Ansible has no notion of state. I trust things will improve over time because it is backed by RedHat.The book has material solidifying questions and self-assessments which help to persist the focus points in memory (I always value them).If I can think of a negative, it would be on the Ansible's UI chapter, it felt too short, or maybe the Ansible project did not think UI first.Let's put it simply: the book delivers superbly on the topic of automation and thereby recommended.

Amazon Verified review

Tiny Jan 22, 2024

This is an exhaustive step by step guide into using Ansible. The document is chock-full of examples, code, and details on how to set up, integrate and maximize your use of Ansible. This is a vital reference guide for anyone using Ansible on a daily basis. If you only use Ansible infrequently, this still can be a great reference to look for the Yaml specifics and elements that can help you succeed to the next level.

jml Jan 21, 2024

Practical Ansible 2e is a well-written, easy to follow book that will become the go-to reference for anyone working with Ansible. Coverage starts with the basics and progresses in a logical fashion through real-life implementation recipes including discussions of YAML and playbooks, Galaxy, conditionals, loops, blocks, and version control via ansible-pull. The new (to 2.9) collections functionality is discussed along with the existing modules and plugins groupings. Directory layout, playbooks, updates, security, and troubleshooting are all given good treatment and of course containerization via Kubernetes is covered as well.There’s not much, if anything, in the Ansible world that is missing from this book. The writing style is clear and explanatory, numerous examples are provided, and each chapter ends with a quiz, making Practical Ansible 2e usable as a textbook. The one improvement that I’d recommend would be to provide the quiz answers at the end of the quiz in each chapter rather than at the end of the book, eliminating the necessity to flip back and forth in order to check your work. Overall. Practical Ansible 2e needs to be on every Ansible developer’s bookshelf.

Practical Ansible: Learn how to automate infrastructure, manage configuration, and deploy applications , Second Edition

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?