Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. VMware Cloud Foundation

The thing I mentioned earlier where we're constantly dealing with federal regulations or new agents that they want us to install and deploy and just getting those out in a consistent manner in a canned installation via Playbook is ideal

Incentivized

It is best suited for an on-premise cloud solution where customer can shift their entire production environment. Also, the customer has a preference for a Homogenous Infrastructure Environment where budget is not a challenge. It is not at all suited for a Heterogenous Environment, e.g., a Public cloud where integration becomes a huge issue, also in SMB sections where budget is challenging.

Incentivized

• Makes it easy to create and share automation in one central hub.
• Ansible content collections give me the ability to reuse code, making it rapid to carry out complex IT processes.
• Event-driven automation allows me to reduce manual tasks: it is rapid to know which action to take and respond automatically by receiving events from external apps automatically.

• Cloud enabled Solution.
• Support Container based Apps.
• Cost efficient.
• Supports both Public and Private Environments.

Incentivized

• Workflows should have more flexible paths than just success or failure.
• The upgrade process can be challenging with differences in security and environment.
• There is an opportunity to add CICD functionality into the tool.
• For development, it would be nice to have the option of editing a repo directly from AAP to allow quick tests/reruns. Then, allow it to push the updates back or create a new branch/PR in GitHub.
• The RBAC is good but could use improvements. One example would be an option that allows admins to assume the access of another user to validate it works as expected.

Incentivized

• The Deployment is complex.
• Recommended Number of Physical Nodes is three or more; with less than 3 Nodes, it becomes difficult to install V-SAN.
• Need for better integration. If we go on the public cloud, it is a huge challenge while integrate with an open source platform.
• Cost can be marginally reduced. SMB segments still prefer a separate license instead of VCF, or they postpone their purchase plans.

Incentivized

We are deploying Ansible at all levels of the organization

Incentivized

the yaml is easy to write and most people can be taught to write basic playbooks in a few weeks

Incentivized

Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.

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

I spoke on this topic today!

Incentivized

AAP doesn't truly stack up against any of the products mentioned except for Aria Automation. But, it is extensible and open and has a lower cost to entry.

Incentivized

Although the public Cloud Model follows Opex Costing Model, it actually leads to very high costs also, the infra model in my organization is not suited for a Public Cloud Model. Hence We decided on an On-Premise Model, and the best suited was VMware Cloud Foundation, which is a complete Software-Defined Scale-Out Architecture. I also prefer a Homogenous environment; i.e, support and services from a Single OEM, so that I Can get faster resolutions to my tickets raised.

Incentivized

• Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers automation and ML tools that allow me to automate complex IT tasks.
• Through automation analytics, it is seamless to gain full visibility into automation performance allowing me to make informed decisions.
• Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform allows me to move rapidly from insights to action.
• Creating and sharing automation content in one place unify a team in one place hence enhancing real-time collaboration.

• My organization has a size of 1300+ employees, using multiple applications and an exchange mail server that is hosted on On-Premise Cloud, hence scalability has not been a challenge.
• Having hosted my Production environment and Mail exchange Server on VCF, there has been optimum resource utilization with very little scope downtime. Hence have been able to save a lot of funds on Hardware resources.
• Due to the size of my organization and due the data load, I have been able to save on Resource Utilization and Organization Funds

Incentivized