Ansible Training — Infrastructure Automation, Configuration Management & Provisioning

What Is Ansible?

Ansible is an agentless, YAML-driven automation platform used for configuration management, application deployment, infrastructure provisioning, and orchestration. Unlike Chef and Puppet, Ansible requires no agents on managed nodes — it uses SSH (Linux) or WinRM (Windows) to push configurations. With Ansible Automation Platform (formerly Tower/AWX), organizations get RBAC, job scheduling, and a REST API. Ansible is one of the most widely adopted automation tools in modern DevOps, particularly in cloud-native and hybrid environments.

Where Ansible Fits in Modern DevOps

Ansible is a first-class automation platform for infrastructure as code, Day-2 operations, and hybrid cloud management. Its agentless architecture makes it ideal for cloud environments where installing agents on ephemeral instances is impractical. Ansible complements Terraform (provisioning) by handling configuration management and ongoing operations. In a modern stack, Ansible handles what happens after terraform apply — configuration, patching, application deployment, and compliance enforcement.

Who Should Attend

• System administrators automating server configuration and patching
• DevOps engineers building infrastructure automation pipelines
• Cloud engineers managing hybrid/multi-cloud infrastructure
• Teams migrating from Chef/Puppet to Ansible

Learning Outcomes

• Write idiomatic Ansible playbooks and roles for configuration management
• Design dynamic inventories for cloud and hybrid environments
• Implement Ansible Automation Platform (AWX) for enterprise job management
• Integrate Ansible with Terraform for end-to-end infrastructure automation
• Build CI/CD pipelines that use Ansible for deployment and Day-2 operations
• Implement compliance automation with CIS benchmark-aligned Ansible roles

Course Modules

1. Ansible Fundamentals — Architecture (agentless, push-based). Inventory. Modules. Playbooks. YAML syntax.
2. Playbooks Deep Dive — Tasks, handlers, variables, facts, conditionals, loops, error handling. Idempotency.
3. Roles & Collections — Role structure. Ansible Galaxy. Collections. Reusable automation content. Dependencies.
4. Inventories — Static and dynamic inventories. Cloud inventory plugins (AWS, Azure, GCP). Group and host variables.
5. Ansible Automation Platform / AWX — Architecture. Job templates. Workflows. RBAC. Scheduling. API. Notifications.
6. Terraform + Ansible — Provisioning with Terraform, configuring with Ansible. Dynamic inventory from Terraform state. Integration patterns.
7. Ansible for Patching — Linux (yum/apt/dnf) and Windows patching. Maintenance windows. Rollback. Compliance reporting.
8. Ansible in CI/CD — Jenkins + Ansible. GitHub Actions + Ansible. Deployment automation. Rolling updates.
9. Ansible for Compliance — CIS benchmarks. OpenSCAP integration. Compliance-as-code. Drift detection. Audit evidence.
10. Capstone: Enterprise Automation — Build a complete Ansible automation framework for provisioning, configuration, patching, and compliance.

Hands-on Exercises (18 total)

Write playbooks for LAMP stack deployment. Build Ansible roles with tests (Molecule). Configure dynamic AWS inventory. Deploy AWX and create job templates. Integrate Terraform + Ansible for a complete infrastructure pipeline. Automate CIS benchmark hardening with audit reporting.

Enterprise Use Cases

• Automating configuration management for 2,000+ Linux servers across 3 data centers
• Using Ansible Automation Platform for compliance enforcement with scheduled audit runs
• Integrating Terraform + Ansible for complete cloud infrastructure lifecycle management

Migration/Modernization Angle

For organizations on Chef or Puppet: this course includes a migration module covering Chef→Ansible and Puppet→Ansible patterns. The agentless architecture, lower operational overhead, and native cloud integrations make Ansible the preferred target for configuration management modernization.