The anatomy of automation execution environments

anatomy of EE blog

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 introduced  major architectural changes, like automation mesh and automation execution environments, that help extend Ansible automation across your organization in a flexible manner, providing a single solution to all your organizational and hybrid cloud automation needs.

Automation execution environments are container images that act as Ansible runtimes for automation controller jobs. Ansible Automation Platform also includes a command-line tool called ansible-builder(execution environment builder)that lets you create automation execution environments by specifying Ansible Content Collections and Python dependencies.

In general, an automation execution environment includes:

  • A version of Python.
  • A version of ansible-core.
  • Python modules/dependencies.
  • Ansible Content Collections (optional).

In this blog, I will take you through the inner workings of ansible-builder and how all the above requirements are packaged inside automation execution environments and delivered as part of Ansible Automation Platform.

 

A tale of two ansible-builder packages

As all projects in Red Hat, ansible-builder follows an open development model and an upstream-first approach. The upstream project for ansible-builder is distributed as a Python package, and then packaged into an RPM for Ansible Automation Platform downstream.This also means that there are different ways to install the upstream package and the downstream ansible-builder.

NOTE: Continue reading

Controversial Reads 091022

https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/column_7nm_chips_china/
After decades trailing the rest of the world in leading-edge chip making, Chinese sand stamper Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) has quietly got into the 7nm business. That’s a huge and unexpected leap. Has the West’s embargo of the latest fab furniture failed?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/semiconductors-emerge-as-battleground-in-us-china-race-to-make-global-tech-norms-in-their-image_4648523.html
Although the United States and China are not engaged in traditional warfare, they are engaged in a war of ideas, trade, and technology, especially in semiconductor hegemony, where both sides are battling for supply and advancement.

https://www.piratewires.com/p/american-hustle-microchip-edition
Trade was global, the world was inextricably connected, and your job’s in China now but you should thank us, actually, because everything is cheap and fast and out-of-work factory workers can simply learn to code.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/defending-open-internet-confronting-reality-fragmented-cyberspace-reflecting-upon-two-cfr-reports-us
Last month, CFR issued the report of a new task force, “Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet.” (I was project director for both reports.)

https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-uncle-sam-worry-about-foreign-open-source-software-geographic-known-unknowns-and-open-source
Nationalism has come to software. While downloading TikTok or WeChat onto your cell phone isn’t quite tantamount to installing Huawei equipment in your local cell tower, all indications suggest that a software geopolitical divide has arrived and won’t be going Continue reading

Fun Times: Is Cisco ACI Dead?

A recent blog post by Andrew Lerner asks whether Cisco ACI is dead. According to Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer is NO (which is also Andrew’s conclusion), but I liked this gem:

However, Gartner assesses that Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is the optimal fabric management software for most Cisco data center environments.

An automation intent-based system provisioning a traditional routed network is considered a better solution than a black-box proprietary software-defined blob of complexity? Who would have thought…

Fun Times: Is Cisco ACI Dead?

A recent blog post by Andrew Lerner asks whether Cisco ACI is dead. According to Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer is NO (which is also Andrew’s conclusion), but I liked this gem:

However, Gartner assesses that Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller is the optimal fabric management software for most Cisco data center environments.

An automation intent-based system provisioning a traditional routed network is considered a better solution than a black-box proprietary software-defined blob of complexity? Who would have thought…

Wi-Fi 7 test tops 5Gbps using Intel, Broadcom equipment

A test using an Intel-based laptop and a Broadcom-based Wi-Fi 7 access point topped the 5Gbps mark for the first time, according to Intel. The company said this week that the test represents an important milestone in Wi-Fi 7 development.According to Intel, this was the industry’s first cross-vendor Wi-Fi 7 demonstration, which is critical for a standard that will cover equipment produced by a myriad of different vendors, all of which has to work together seamlessly.Wi-Fi 7, also known as 802.11be, introduces a host of new features to the venerable Wi-Fi standard, using the 6GHz spectrum to provide the possibility of much wider—up to 320MHz—channels for vastly increased throughput, multilink operation for much more efficient use of available spectrum, and 4K QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) data modulation.To read this article in full, please click here

Heavy Networking 646: Networking For Spacefaring Rockets

Today on Heavy Networking, aerospace networking. We talk with Lexie Cooper, who works for Blue Origin as an Avionics Integration Engineer. That’s right. Lexie does networking for rockets. We talk about the challenges of building networks for spacefaring vehicles, differences between aerospace and the typical enterprise, continuous learning, the pros and cons of building a social media presence, and more.

Heavy Networking 646: Networking For Spacefaring Rockets

Today on Heavy Networking, aerospace networking. We talk with Lexie Cooper, who works for Blue Origin as an Avionics Integration Engineer. That’s right. Lexie does networking for rockets. We talk about the challenges of building networks for spacefaring vehicles, differences between aerospace and the typical enterprise, continuous learning, the pros and cons of building a social media presence, and more.

The post Heavy Networking 646: Networking For Spacefaring Rockets appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Weekend Reads 090922


CXL is supported by pretty much every hardware vendor and built on top of PCI Express for coherent memory access between a CPU and a device, such as a hardware accelerator, or a CPU and memory.


Challenges pertaining to outdated infrastructure could easily be compounded by the fact that many IT and security teams don’t seem to have a plan in place to mobilize if and when a cyberattack occurs.


Chinese military researchers are threatening that Musk’s Starlink satellites must be destroyed.


Early versions of QUIC had FEC, but for all resources. The redundancy overheads for all data were considered too high, and the feature was dropped.


Aside from counterfeiting, cybersquatting domains can also serve as vehicles for other types of cybercrime, such as spear phishing, scams, and spamming.


In 2020, the ICANN Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council approved a plan to revamp the WHOIS system as per the recommendations given by the ICANN Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP). This plan directed ICANN to develop a centralized System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) for WHOIS records.


A couple of months ago, in July 2022, I wrote about our work in measuring the level of use of QUIC in the Continue reading

Brand Protection

I woke up at 5am this morning to order a new iPhone. I did this because I wanted the new camera upgrades along with some other nice-to-haves. Why did I get an iPhone and not a new Samsung? Why didn’t I look at any of the other phones on the market? It’s because I am a loyal Apple customer at this point. Does that mean I think the iPhone is perfect? Far from it! But I will choose it in spite of the flaws because I know it has room to be better.

That whole story is repeated time and again in technology. People find themselves drawn to particular companies or brands. They pick a new phone or computer or car based on their familiarity with the way they work or the design choices that are made. But does that mean they have to be loyal to that company no matter what?

Agree to Disagree

One of the things that I feel is absolutely paramount to being a trusted advisor in the technology space is the ability to be critical of a product or brand. If you look at a lot of the ambassador or influencer program agreements you’ll see Continue reading

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