Item: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Rating: 10
Author: Greg Jewett

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We started with Tower for automated OS updates and configurations. We have since moved to using configuration as code and Ansible Automation Platform to build F5 configurations and build and automate data migrations. We are looking forward to using event-driven ansible and policy as code as learned at Summit. We love it!

Pros and Cons

Repeating tasks based on a schedule.
Agnostic support for so many platforms and systems.
Support for federated environments, and custom use cases.
Using standard and open developments environments (Python and JSON).

Playbook execution result output can sometimes be very messy and hard to understand. Make JSON output pretty and understandable. Allow disclosure triangles to hide/show content and let the playbook dictate that.
Allow for a pop-up review of a playbook's credentials, inventory, or other sub-components instead of forcing a new window or tab within the browser. Allow for quick review or audit.
Allow for stepping through a playbook, step by step, just like a development IDE or programming environment, inspecting variables and output from plays.

Return on Investment

POSITIVE: currently used by the IT department and some others, but we want others to use it.
NEGATIVE: We need less technical output for the non-technical. It should be controllable or a setting within playbooks. We also need more graphical responses (non-technical).
POSITIVE: Always being updated and expanded (CaC, EDA, Policy as Code, execution environments, AI, etc..)

Key Insights

Do you think Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's feature set?

Yes

Did Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

It has helped save us so much time, as it was designed to automate mundane and repetitive tasks that we were using other tools to perform and that required so much manual intervention. It does not work very well within Windows environments, understandably, but I would love to see more integration. I want it to be sexy and attractive to more than just geeky sysadmins.

Review of Ansible Automation Platform and hopes for the future!

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform