So as we wrap up the first module,
let's just summarize some of the benefits and use cases of Ansible. So
firstly, Ansible uses YAML file format and Jinja2 templating.
Jinja2 is a template engine for the Python programming language.
So Ansible uses Jinja2 templating to access variables and facts and really
does extend the defaults advanceable for more advanced‑use cases. And one of
the great benefits is that it's self‑documenting.
So when someone looks at your playbook,
it really is easy to understand, unlike a Python code or a Bash script.
So not only is Ansible easy to understand,
but just with a few lines of YAML, which is the language
used for Ansible, you can install,
let's say, a group of web servers on as many hosts as you like.
So Ansible is pretty good at scaling up and down.
For example,
Ansible uses advanced features such as SSH multiplexing to optimize SSH
performance. And there are use cases out there where people are managing
thousands of nodes with Ansible. Ansible also scales down pretty well
with simple tasks are easy to implement and understand in playbooks. We
can also have mechanisms to provide modularization where complex jobs can
be divided into smaller pieces, and we'll be looking at this in later
modules.
So the concept of modularity comes into playbooks as they become more complex.
So as playbooks become larger,
we really need to organize them better, and playbooks are not
intended to be used across different context really.
So Ansible here is an option to implement roles, and roles can
organize your playbooks. And then we have Ansible Galaxy, which is
an online repository for these roles.
Again, we'll be looking at this in later demos. Then we have plugins that are
used to extend the Python code and Ansible control host.
So when you think about a plugin, it really is just a piece of code
that augments Ansible's core functionality with logic and features
that are accessible to all modules.
The most popular plugin is a lookup and filter plugin, and
we'll be looking at these later too.
We also have blocks that are used to group tasks, which is pretty useful.
Finally, we already mentioned this,
we have collections, and collections are in the more recent versions of Ansible.
And they really can help you organize your modules, plugins, library, and roles,
and even playbooks into a collection, and then you can share it on Ansible
Galaxy. So consider collections are like a distribution format for Ansible
content and can include playbooks, roles,
modules, and even plugins. In this module, we started by
addressing the challenging landscape that Ansible overcomes.
It's complex to manage and maintain large environments, and
configuration drift is a problem.
We then addressed Ansible and its architecture along with the main components
in the Ansible tool kit. I went into the details of Ansible connectivity,
along with some best practices and security alerts.
We also discussed the main Ansible building blocks such as modules,
the inventory, playbooks, along with ad hoc commands. There were four demos,
ranging from the basics of getting started with Ansible to
playbooks and variable substitution.