Ansible Validated Content: Introduction to infra.osbuild Collection

Introduction to the Image builder use case

During the last year we met with multiple edge customers, covering the automation needs for IT Linux infrastructure at scale across remote locations where there is often no IT staff on site. Think about retail stores, dark stores and warehouses where self-checkout, handhelds and POS devices hosting RHEL are distributed everywhere. 

For industrial setups and manufacture, this could be the scenario for small factor servers and storage hosting logging monitoring to gather information about operational activities, which are located in secure facilities. 

One of the recurrent needs for our customers with distributed devices is the ability to upgrade Linux devices faster, at scale, mostly due to regulations or security risks. Ideally, you should be able to patch at scale as soon as a vulnerability is identified. 

The main challenge with the traditional RPM patching model is that it is incremental, and frequently some Linux devices might have slight differences. That is why there are new edge-focused capabilities and models that start with the premise that you could and should test a whole base image, and once it passes your validations, it should be deployed into all the target devices that Continue reading