Kubernetes vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

K8s should be avoided - If your application works well without being converted into microservices-based architecture & fits correctly in a VM, needs less scaling, have a fixed traffic pattern then it is better to keep away from Kubernetes. Otherwise, the operational challenges & technical expertise will add a lot to the OPEX. Also, if you're the one who thinks that containers consume fewer resources as compared to VMs then this is not true. As soon as you convert your application to a microservice-based architecture, a lot of components will add up, shooting your resource consumption even higher than VMs so, please beware. Kubernetes is a good choice - When the application needs quick scaling, is already in microservice-based architecture, has no fixed traffic pattern, most of the employees already have desired skills.

Incentivized

That is a big task for all the functionality now in Ansible Collections - Ethernet Networking, Fibre Channel Networking, Wireless networking, LB/ADC configuration & changes. Storage config and changes, VMware provisioning and changes, Windows Desktop provision when paired w/ a tool like Zuul, Workflow integration w/ ServiceNow (SNOW), Testing framework such as Molecule really all you to ensure what you have in your playbooks is solid...prior to deployment not when released to your consumers; Critical. Consistent runbooks instead of managing tons of scripts allows for cross-team training and functionality in a true disaster scenario. Additionally, conversion tools from other IT automation offerings Puppet and Chef, integration into Cloud environments. The list grows daily so jump in the water is just right!

Incentivized

• Complex cluster management can be done with simple commands with strong authentication and authorization schemes
• Exhaustive documentation and open community smoothens the learning process
• As a user a few concepts like pod, deployment and service are sufficient to go a long way

Incentivized

• Agentless. For our implementation, this is the single biggest factor. If we have to touch the machine and install an agent before we can start managing it, that's already too much effort and slows us down.
• Re-entrant. This is not unique to Ansible, but certainly a huge improvement over custom scripts and such. Because it's such a huge effort to make scripts re-entrant, most of our scripts did not allow an elegant way to recover on failure. Manually cleaning up the half-attempt and re-trying is still too cumbersome, and being able to just re-run Ansible is a great improvement!
• Infrastructure as code. This is new to Ansible, and there are still a few minor bugs with their AWS modules, but it's been a huge help being able to define our infrastructure in an Ansible playbook, commit it to source control, and use one tool for all our DevOps tasks.

Incentivized

• Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally.
• The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively.
• Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking.

Incentivized

• Ansible Tower is a paid service, which can be annoying at times. But that is understandable, as it requires an additional level of support from the Ansible team to develop.
• There is a decently large learning curve for someone not familiar with setting up Unix environments. However, there is a very large support community with tons of documentation, so it's not a dealbreaker.

Incentivized

Ansible is very friendly to start with. With just a few configurations, you have full management to your servers. You can configure it and implement it in seconds. You can also set up a cron job to make sure it gets implemented. It suits our need perfectly. Support can be a bit hard.

Incentivized

There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.

Incentivized

Most of the required features for any orchestration tool or framework, which is provided by Kubernetes. After understanding all modules and features of the K8S, it is the best fit for us as compared with others out there.

Incentivized

Ansible is a great product, which we really love as it is compatible running along side and with other DevOps tool. The integration features allows other teams to participate in our shared objective. Ansible is easy to use as many programmers are familiar with Python and RHEL. We selected Ansible because its easy barrier to entry and pricing model for new users with not many nodes to manage. We will continue to develop and on-board teams and monitor the scaling abilities of Ansible.

Incentivized

• Because of microservices, Kubernetes makes it easy to find the cost of each application easily.
• Like every new technology, initially, it took more resources to educate ourselves but over a period of time, I believe it's going to be worth it.

Incentivized

• We have been able to deploy solutions to client issues without impacting uptime.
• Most system administration tasks have been automated so I am now free to work on architectural improvements or customer support.
• Our customer support has improved thanks to Ansible as it has allowed me more time away from repetitive system activities so I may assist with customer questions and application testing.

Incentivized