Ansible--automation at its best
May 21, 2025

Ansible--automation at its best

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Enterprise

Modules Used

  • Ansible Tower

Overall Satisfaction with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

I automate operations tasks for a financial institution, primarily using ServiceNOW, F5, and Bluecat endpoints. When Ansible works well, it works very well. Operations tasks can be monotonous and form dependent. Ansible allows me to create playbooks that auto-complete forms for folks that don't want to learn programming but are tasked with needing their work to be as near perfect as possible

Pros

  • GALAXY!
  • Providing multiple ways to create playbooks--pure Python, Jinja, and pre-written modules

Cons

  • More examples in documentation, please!
  • The learning curve can be large, especially for those already experienced with programming concepts
  • Limitations with host licences--the amount of devices you can control with AAP is too low
  • We log all automation results to an endpoint server that calculates each job to produce a 'total time savings' figure that's reported on monthly. This allows management to see 'real-world' time (aka) cost savings automation has provided
  • A direct negative can be the time required to create the time savings
  • AAP provides an easy enough UI for users to launch playbooks from, thereby reducing the training costs to teach them
Again, when it works, it works well; it can be quite a headache when it doesn't, however this is typical of most if not all tech platforms. The UI is easy enough to hand over an entire workflow process over to a user by asking them to complete a brief prompt but the prompts can be overly generic, leaving little room for IFTTT logic
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

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

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform again?

Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Ansible is well suited for automating tasks where the data is static and the tasks are predictable. Conversely, it's less appropriate where your data or tasks are dynamic and require lots of parsing or "massaging" to fit the model needed for modules to work. There are many ways to approach this with lots of available modules--using 'shell' instead of 'raw'--but the syntax required to utilize the modules are specific to only Ansible, which can make things less approachable

Ansible Feature Ratings

Infrastructure Automation
8
Automated Provisioning
7
Parallel Execution
3
Node Management
7
Reporting & Logging
6
Inventory Control
7
Version Control
9
Role-based access control
8

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