Automating Azure Infrastructure for High Availability Web Hosting with Ansible

Is it a hassle to set up the infrastructure for a new website every time you need to run a short-term project, such as a marketing campaign or just for testing? Do you spend too much on resources that are only used for a short period? Look no further, because automation is here to save the day!

By automating the process of setting up the infrastructure and configuring it to host your application, you can save time, reduce errors, and make it cost-effective. The goal is to spin up a platform to host a website with just a click of a button for a one-off campaign or a recurring event.

In this post, we discuss the advantages of automating infrastructure provisioning and configuration through an example to create a platform, which you can customize to suit your needs. Let's get started!

Target setup

For the availability of our website, we intend to implement a two-tier software architecture consisting of a few virtual machines (VM) with a load balancer in front of them. The first tier will be the client interface or presentation layer, while the second tier are VMs running the web application and database. For a more scalable Continue reading

Mac, iPad, or Both?

Both Jason Snell and John Gruber, both stalwarts in the Apple journalism world, have recently weighed in on this topic. Jason says he’s given up on the iPad-only travel dream; John says he keeps throwing his iPad in his bag when he travels, even if he never uses it. I have thoughts on this topic—as you might think, considering I decided to write about it! (Ah, but what device did I use to write?)

Jason kicks off the discussion with a review of his iPad travel usage, which until the arrival of Apple Silicon, was going along swimmingly. Now, with Apple Silicon-powered Macs, things are different:

In the battle between iPad and Mac, I’m a longtime member of Team Both—I use my Mac most of the day at my desk, but when I write elsewhere in the house or backyard, I switch to an iPad Pro in the Magic Keyboard case. And that iPad (in a regular case) is my primary computing device when I’m not in work mode…But here I sit at my mother’s dining room table, typing on a MacBook Air. Something has changed in my approach to travel, and I’m trying to understand just Continue reading

Ansible Community Day, Berlin 2023

The Ansible Community Day is a new initiative by the Ansible Community Team at Red Hat to connect with the people using, contributing to, and developing the Ansible project worldwide. This new event complements the Ansible Contributor Summit, to put the users of Ansible in all their shapes and forms front and center.

In the last Ansible Community Day in Boston, the day right before AnsibleFest 2023, the community had the opportunity to meet in-person and get to know each other, learn a few things and share their knowledge using Ansible. It was such a great experience that we couldn't wait to have another. And here it is!

Guten Tag Berlin!

After two very successful Ansible Community Day events this year, the first in Pune, India in February and the next in Boston in May, our third event for 2023 will be held in Berlin, Germany!

Registration for Ansible Community Day Berlin 2023 is now open! If you’d like to attend, please check out the following Eventbrite page for specific details and registration. 

The event is set for Wednesday, September 20, 2023.
We will meet in c-base (Rungestraße 20, Berlin, Germany)

What can you expect from (or Continue reading

Ansible Community Day, Berlin 2023

Ansible Community Day, Berlin 2023

The Ansible Community Day is a new initiative by the Ansible Community Team at Red Hat to connect with the people using, contributing to, and developing the Ansible project worldwide. This new event complements the Ansible Contributor Summit, to put the users of Ansible in all their shapes and forms front and center.

In the last Ansible Community Day in Boston, the day right before AnsibleFest 2023, the community had the opportunity to meet in-person and get to know each other, learn a few things and share their knowledge using Ansible. It was such a great experience that we couldn't wait to have another. And here it is!

Guten Tag Berlin!

After two very successful Ansible Community Day events this year, the first in Pune, India in February and the next in Boston in May, our third event for 2023 will be held in Berlin, Germany!

Registration for Ansible Community Day Berlin 2023 is now open! If you'd like to attend, please check out the following Eventbrite page for specific details and registration. 

The event is set for Wednesday, September 20, 2023. We will meet in c-base (Rungestraße 20, Berlin, Germany)

What can Continue reading

The Interplay Of GDP, Inflation, And IT Spending

Data changes behavior and behavior changes data. It is a phenomenon that is akin to the Observer Effect in physics in that you can’t observe something without changing its behavior. …

The post The Interplay Of GDP, Inflation, And IT Spending first appeared on The Next Platform.

The Interplay Of GDP, Inflation, And IT Spending was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Manage OSPF for network automation with Ansible validated content

In the quickly evolving networking environment, efficient management of routing protocols is essential for reliable and optimized network performance.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful tool for streamlining repetitive tasks and orchestrating complex network configurations. One crucial aspect of platform-agnostic network management is the management of routing protocols, and in this blog post, we'll explore how Ansible Automation Platform can be utilized to manage OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), a widely used dynamic routing protocol.

At AnsibleFest 2022 we announced a new form of content included in the platform, called Ansible validated content.  We also have detailed blogs on Network Automation with Ansible Validated Content using the network.base collection, and BGP Management with Ansible Validated Content using the network.bgp collection. Now, we are adding a network validated content Collection called network.ospf to manage your OSPF protocols. 

OSPF is a widely used dynamic routing protocol, and Ansible Automation Platform can significantly streamline the management of OSPF configurations. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of managing OSPF with Ansible Automation Platform, including some practical examples of how to automate common OSPF tasks that are part of network management.

Network OSPF Continue reading

Interfaces Management with Ansible validated content using the network.interfaces collection

Introduction

At AnsibleFest 2022, we announced a new addition to the content ecosystem offered through Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform: Ansible validated content. Ansible validated content is use case-focused and provides an expert-guided path for performing operational tasks.  

While Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collections focus on how to integrate platforms (typically in the form of modules), Ansible validated content offers expert best practices and guidance for how to perform operations or tasks (typically in the form of roles or playbooks). Some Ansible validated content may depend on certified content (modules) for integration.

Specifically in the network automation area, we have already seen  the release of network.base and network.bgp validated content.

Network engineers commonly ask about automation for network interfaces, which are the fundamental connection point for endpoints as layer 2 access ports, or other networking devices that extend the network to other domains as layer 3 interfaces. However it is extremely challenging to be able to collect data at scale and at the same time standardize settings for interfaces following specific rules through automation. 

For this reason, we want to introduce you to the new network.interfaces collection. In this blog, we will show how Continue reading

Technology Short Take 169

Welcome to Technology Short Take #169! Prior to the recent Spousetivities post, it had been a few months since I posted on the site; life has been busy, and it hasn’t left much time for blogging. Hopefully things will settle down soon, but until then I’ll continue to do the best I can to share useful information with folks. Hopefully something I’ve included in this Technology Short Take proves to be useful to someone. OK, let’s get on to the content!

Networking

• Navendu Pottekkat offers readers a comprehensive guide to API gateways, Kubernetes gateways, and service meshes. It’s a good breakdown of the technologies, how they’re related, how they’re different, and the intended/ideal use cases for each.

Security

• Backdoors in SSH public keys? Oh my. Be wary, friends.
• Alessandro Brucato updates on SCARLETEEL 2.0 enhancements and changes.
• Daniel Gzrelak walks readers through what appears to be a very large (potential) hole when configuring GitHub OIDC integration with AWS.
• Here we go again. As a side note, I am curious to know what other CPU architectures, if any, are affected. Will something like this spark a (larger) migration to ARM-based architectures?

Cloud Computing/Cloud Management

• Has your team started saying, Continue reading

Bulk API in Automation Controller

Automation Controller API:

Automation controller has a rich ReSTful API. REST stands for Representational State Transfer and is sometimes spelled as “ReST”. It relies on a stateless, client-server, and cacheable communications protocol, usually the HTTP protocol. REST APIs provide access to resources (data entities) via URI paths. You can visit the automation controller REST API in a web browser at: http://<server name>/api/

API Usage:

Many automation controller customers use the API to build their own event driven automation type solutions that draw data from their environment and then trigger jobs in the automation controller. This type of architecture can lead to incredibly high frequency and volume of requests to the controller API pushing controller’s API to the breaking point.

The API is the simplest and most straightforward way to interact with automation controller for any external system. These external systems and tools integrate with the automation controller API to mainly launch the jobs and get results about the jobs. Additionally, the inventory information is stored in an external system and pushed to the automation controller via API too. Given the fact that we have seen enterprises manage  thousands of hosts via automation controller, the number of API calls Continue reading

Spousetivities Returns to VMware Explore 2023

After a lengthy hiatus—prompted by a pandemic and the suspension of in-person events as a result—Spousetivities returns to VMware Explore! VMware Explore, the event formerly known as VMworld, is happening in Las Vegas, NV, and Spousetivities will be there offering organized activities for spouses, partners, significant others, family, or friends traveling with conference attendees. Registration is already open!

Thanks to the support of Veeam and Synterex, Crystal has organized a great set of activities happening during VMware Explore:

• Downtown food tour (with or without cocktails): How about a private food tour in Vegas’ newly revitalized area of Fremont East? This area is now home to the city’s most exciting dining scene with local chefs crafting imaginative farm-to-table, seasonal, artisan fare.
• Scenic Route 66 tour: “Get your kicks, On Route 66”! Visit a unique desert winery and two distilleries on historic Route 66. Total tour time is approximately five hours.
• Emerald Cave kayak tour: What could be better than a day of kayaking on the Colorado River? This amazing 5 mile kayaking tour in the spectacular Black Canyon is sure to be an amazing adventure. You should have a chance to see plenty of desert wildlife, and you’ll visit Emerald Continue reading

What’s New and Next in Private Automation Hub

Private automation hub is the content system for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, hosting and serving up content to the platform in a scalable way with an enhanced security posture. The hosted content ranges from collections to container images, whether it's your own content, certified content from Red Hat or partner content from the extensive partner ecosystem, along with open source content from Ansible Galaxy.

Private automation hub is on its way to being the content management system for the Ansible Automation Platform and, with the most recent release, it has made some great steps to cementing itself as the de facto content system choice for Ansible Automation Platform.

Enhancing Software Supply Chain Security

Content can be pretty harmful if you cannot trust the source. Much like surfing the internet, we have become accustomed to knowing that if there is a “padlock” in the browser bar then we can consider the site safe. We also know that if we take content from the community, we do so at our own risk, but when you pay for a subscription that offers Red Hat Ansible Certified Content, you expect it to be safe. To drive this manner of safety and instill Continue reading

Ansible data manipulation with a Filter

Background:

This year at Summit, an attendee posed a question about how to work with setting facts and changing data in Ansible. Many times we’ve come across people using task after task to manipulate data, to turn items into lists, filter our options, trying to do heavy data manipulation and to turn data from one source into another. Trying to make these programmatic changes using a mixture of YAML and Jinja inside of roles and playbooks is a headache of its own. While many of these options will work, they aren’t very efficient or easy to implement. Ansible Playbooks were never meant for programming.

One solution that is usually overlooked is to do the manipulation in Python inside of a module or a filter. This article will detail how to create a filter to manipulate data. In addition, a repository for all code referenced in this article has been created. 

This example was first developed as a module. However after review, it was determined that these data transformations are best done as filters. Filters can take multiple data inputs, do the programmatic operations, and then can be used in line where they are used as input or set as Continue reading

Ansible data manipulation with a Filter

This year at Summit, an attendee posed a question about how to work with setting facts and changing data in Ansible. Many times we’ve come across people using task after task to manipulate data, to turn items into lists, filter our options, trying to do heavy data manipulation and to turn data from one source into another. Trying to make these programmatic changes using a mixture of YAML and Jinja inside of roles and playbooks is a headache of its own. While many of these options will work, they aren’t very efficient or easy to implement. Ansible Playbooks were never meant for programming.

One solution that is usually overlooked is to do the manipulation in Python inside of a module or a filter. This article will detail how to create a filter to manipulate data. In addition, a repository for all code referenced in this article has been created.

This example was first developed as a module. However after review, it was determined that these data transformations are best done as filters. Filters can take multiple data inputs, do the programmatic operations, and then can be used in line where they are used as input or set as a fact. Continue reading

Unleashing the Potential of Multi-Cloud Automation with Ansible and Terraform

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are dependent on streamlined processes and efficient systems more than ever. One such revolutionary pathway towards a more efficient and flexible IT infrastructure is multi-cloud automation. In this blog, we will look at how to employ Ansible, a powerful automation tool, to tap into the immense potential of multi-cloud environments. We take you on a journey behind the scenes of our interactive labs, where our customers and prospects acquire hands-on experience with Ansible while exploring its newest features. In our labs, public clouds such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure are showcased. Using Ansible we can orchestrate a symphony of seamless provisioning and optimal multi-cloud management. So, buckle up for a deep dive into the realm of multi-cloud automation, where complexity is simplified, and potential is unleashed.

The Ansible Technical Marketing team uses a variety of tools to create training labs and technical sales workshops for our field teams and customers. One of our training platforms includes Instruqt, an as-a-service learning platform, to help us create sandbox environments that can be run in your browser window. For technical tools behind the scenes, we use a combination of Ansible and Packer to build Continue reading

Unlocking efficiency: Harnessing the capabilities of ansible-builder 3.0

We recently announced the general availability of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4, This blog outlines the features of execution environment builder (ansible-builder) 3.0 that was included with this latest release. 

With the introduction of Ansible Automation Platform 2, we introduced the concept of automation execution environments. A key part of enabling our customers to create, manage, and scale their automation, they are portable Ansible runtime environments which enable us to truly decouple the control and execution planes in Ansible Automation Platform. Automation execution environments replace the traditional virtual environments in Ansible Tower by providing a powerful dependency management solution. Customers can also improve their automation run efficiency, as they are lightweight Ansible runtime environments.

In general, an automation execution environment includes:

• Base UBI 8/9 image.
• A version of Python
• A version of ansible-core
• Python modules/dependencies
• Ansible Content Collections (optional)

The execution environment builder tool was built to aid in the creation of execution environments for Ansible customers and users. It provides a definition schema that is based on the above execution environment requirements.

Ansible-builder 3.0 enhancements

ansible-builder version 3.0 introduces some major changes in the definition schema to help customers Continue reading

What’s New: Cloud Automation with amazon.cloud 0.4.0

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Control Collection (amazon.cloud) has been updated with a powerful new suite of modules. We introduced the experimental cloud collection for Ansible back in May of 2022 and it has come a really long way.  With the launch of the AWS Cloud Control API, developers have a consistent method to manage supported services that are defined as part of their cloud infrastructure throughout their lifecycle, so there are fewer APIs to learn as developers add new services to their infrastructure. The 0.4.0 version of the amazon.cloud collection not only improves the user experience in automating AWS cloud features with Ansible, but also provides improved code quality and an enhanced CI process.

This blog explains what is new in amazon.cloud 0.4.0 that will help both the developers and the users.

Forward-Looking Changes

Migration of CI from Zuul to GitHub Actions

Continuous Integration testing and the release process have been moved from Zuul to GitHub Actions for this collection. The tests include code linters (which check style formatting), unit tests, integration tests, sanity tests, and other custom checks. Using GitHub Actions has helped us save a Continue reading

Subscription and Host Metric Changes in Ansible Automation Platform 2.4

What and Why?

Our customers use Ansible Automation Platform across a multitude of platforms, in a plethora of ways. Providing an accurate accounting and reporting capability is sometimes difficult across the various types of use cases we encounter.

If you have traditionally used the platform with infrequently changing or more static types of managed hosts, you’re probably pretty much covered. If however, you administer a more diverse and dynamic set of hosts, there may be occasions where you require more flexibility, when accounting for managed hosts against your purchased subscription.

That’s why in Ansible Automation Platform 2.4, we’ve introduced a new Host Metrics dashboard tab with the ability to:

• View high level automation run details per managed host

• The first and last time automated (this metric already existed)
• The number of times automation has been run or attempted to be run against a host (new in 2.4)
• The number of times a managed host has been deleted (new in 2.4)

The ability to view the number of times automation has been run on hosts is a simple but really useful metric:

• Instantly see your most commonly automated hosts
• See which hosts exist in Continue reading

OpenShift and Ansible: Bridging the Automation Gap for 5G and Beyond Networks – Part 1

This blog post is co-authored with Ian Miller.

5G and beyond mobile networks are requesting automation capabilities to rapidly scale up their service rollout. To that end, Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructures unlock a great deal of flexibility through declarative configuration.

However, there is a large number of important non-declarative components (e.g. legacy OSS/BSS systems, bare metal servers, network infrastructure, etc.) that will still require imperative configuration for the foreseeable future.

In this series of two articles, we bring together powerful tools and concepts for effectively managing declarative configurations using Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for integrating any non-declarative system into closed-loop automation workflows.

Declarative vs Imperative, a Zero-Sum Game for 5G?

Short answer: definitely not.

Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift are built around a declarative model in which configuration Custom Resources (CRs) capture the desired end state and the cluster works to reconcile to it. This model fits in seamlessly with tools like GitOps and the different engines (i.e. clusters, applications, observability, and governance) provided by Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes.

Both tools are thoroughly leveraged by the Red Hat Zero Continue reading

How to deploy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Google Cloud

This blog is co-authored by Zack Kayyali and Hicham (he-sham) Mourad

Deploying Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

The steps below detail how to install Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Google Cloud from the marketplace. Before starting the deployment process, please ensure the Google Cloud account you are using to deploy has the following permissions. These IAM roles are required to deploy the Google Cloud foundation stack offering.  The foundation stack offering here refers to the base Ansible Automation Platform 2 deployment.

This blog details how to deploy Ansible Automation Platform on Google Cloud, and then access the application. This deployment process will be configured to set up Ansible Automation Platform on its own Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) that it creates and manages. We also support deploying into an existing VPC.

To begin, first log into your Google Cloud account. If you have a private offer, ensure that these are accepted for both the foundation and extension node offerings. 

Note: 

• The foundation offer refers to the “Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 - Up to 100 Managed Nodes” marketplace item. 
• The extension node offer refers to the “Extension Node - Ansible Automation Platform 2 - 100 Managed Continue reading

How to use the new Constructed Inventory Feature in Ansible Automation Platform 2.4

The New Constructed Inventory Feature

In this blog we introduced the idea for a new smarter way of handling inventory based on the Ansible constructed plugin. Now in Ansible Automation Platform 2.4, we have introduced this as a fully supported feature and this blog aims to introduce you to it! 

Constructed inventory is the successor to the existing Smart Inventory feature, and  is now presented as another choice when creating an Inventory in Ansible Automation Platform controller. This will take a list of ‘normal’ inventories as input, perform user-defined operations, filter, and produce a resultant inventory with content from the input inventories.

What is Constructed Inventory?

The function is similar to the existing smart inventory - in that it allows users to run jobs against hosts in multiple inventories. 

Constructed inventory however introduces new capabilities, including the built in ability to define and use both hostvars and groupvars:

• Groups are present in constructed inventory and play a key role in its configuration.
• User-defined logic (to add groups, vars, and down-select hosts) is run via ansible-inventory, which controller does for you, and is shown in the UI through an inventory update.
• The format of user-defined logic Continue reading