In this post, I’m going to walk you through the steps to install Ansible 2.x into a Python virtual environment (virtualenv) on OS X. There’s nothing terribly hard or unusual about this process, but I wanted to document it here for folks who might be new to the process (or who might be interested in why using this approach could be beneficial).
I’m stumbled into this process because I had been using Ansible 1.9.x and wanted to upgrade to Ansible 2.x so that I could use some of the new OpenStack-related modules. (These are modules that allow you to manipulate OpenStack-based resources, like instances or networks, using Ansible playbooks, and they were introduced with the release of Ansible 2.x.) The new modules had some additional Python dependencies, and installing these Python dependencies on OS X can be challenging at times (due to System Integrity Protection [SIP]). For example, installing the shade module on my OS X El Capitan system ran afoul of SIP.
The answer is to use Python virtual environments (aka “virtualenvs”). Virtualenvs provide a mechanism whereby you can isolate Python dependencies between different Python-based projects. You create a Python virtualenv, then Continue reading

This is the second in a series of posts about how Ansible and Ansible Tower enable you to manage your infrastructure simply, securely, and efficiently.
When we talk about Tower, we often talk in terms of Control, Knowledge, and Delegation. But what does that mean? In this series of blog posts, we'll describe some of the ways you can use Ansible and Ansible Tower to manage your infrastructure.
In our first blog post, we described how Ansible Tower makes it easy to control the way your infrastructure is configured via configuration definition and continuous remediation.
But controlling the configuration of your infrastructure is just one step. You also need control of the components of your infrastructure - your inventory. You need to do day-to-day management tasks on demand. And Ansible Tower makes those easy as well.
If you’ve used Ansible, you know about the basics of inventory. A static Ansible inventory is just an INI-style file that describes your hosts and groups, and optionally some variables that apply to your hosts and groups. Here's an example from the Ansible documentation.
{% raw %}[atlanta] host1 host2 [raleigh] host2 host3 [southeast:children] atlanta raleigh [southeast:vars] nameserver=dns.southeast.example. Continue reading
A large portion of the OpenStack community is gathered in Austin this week for the Spring 2016 OpenStack Summit. As I’ve done at previous Summits (and other events), I’m offering to gather with other Christian believers for a brief time of prayer in the mornings before the sessions kick off each day.
Normally I get these arranged much earlier, so I apologize for not getting this out there sooner. That being said, if you’re a Christian and interested in gathering for a brief time of prayer, we will be meeting outside the Austin Convention Center at 8:30 am. We’ll meet along East 4th Street, on the convention center side of the Downtown Station.
Anyone is welcome to join us, but please note that this will be a distinctly Christian-focused and Christ-centered event.
You don’t need to RSVP or let me know you’ll be there; just feel free to stop by. I hope to see you there!
Welcome to Technology Short Take #65! As usual, I gathered an odd collection of links and articles from around the web on key data center technologies and trends. I hope you find something useful!