Getting started with Ansible Automation Platform
May 22, 2025

Getting started with Ansible Automation Platform

Jeff Jacober | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Enterprise

Modules Used

  • Ansible Tower

Overall Satisfaction with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

We are still fairly new to AAP and trying to figure out the best uses for us. Currently we are working to automate our virtual server deployment and configuration process. Going forward, we would like to use it for Application deployment, Snapshot automation and Network configuration. I would like to also explore event-driven Ansible to do things like restarting IIS or Windows services to help us recover from outages.

Pros

  • Makes Ansible easier to use, with a lower barrier of entry
  • Keeps records and provides analytics on job runs
  • Large collection of modules, including for Windows that allow the automation of a large variety of tasks

Cons

  • Better documentation of how all the options/parameters are meant to be used (when creating things like jobs, templates, inventories, etc)
  • More recommendations of best practices as far as the best way to organize job templates, workflows, roles. Much can be found on how to organize pure Ansible, but not so much for AAP specifically.
  • I have found some things that seem like they should be easy but are not possible. Things like moving a host from one inventory to a different inventory. As far as I know this is not possible and requires deletion and recreation. Maybe I just don't know how this could be done or don't understand the design decisions behind this?
  • We are still early in our implementation and don't have much yet - but I can say that it has already improved the time it takes to deploy a new virtual server for us, as well as making them more consistent.
  • In working through what jobs are required, it has really improved the communication between our different teams
Overall, you don't need to be very technical to take advantage of AAP, the UI is very user friendly and accessible. I do find that there are some places where choices or options could use more explanation.
AAP compares favorably with Terraform and Power Automate. I don't have much experience with Terraform, but I find AAP and Ansible easier to use as well as having more capabilities. Power Platform is also an excellent automation tool that is user friendly but I feel that Ansible has more compatibility with a variety of technologies.

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

I don't have a lot of experience yet with Ansible and I am still trying to figure this question out for myself. From the little I do know, talking to others and reading online, I feel like managing networking devices is one thing Ansible is really good at. On the other hand, managing things in the Windows world (configuration or desired state management) does not seem to be its strong suit.

Ansible Feature Ratings

Configuration Management
8.5
Infrastructure Automation
8
Automated Provisioning
8
Parallel Execution
10
Node Management
8
Reporting & Logging
10
Inventory Control
Not Rated
Version Control
Not Rated
Role-based access control
7

Comments

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