Discovering Ansible
Ansible is the most popular tool for configuration management and has become a standout solution for network automation due to several unique features, which we’ll explore in the following sections. Before diving into these specifics, let’s take a quick look at Ansible’s journey, from its initial release to today.
Ansible was created by Michael DeHaan in 2012 as an open source, agentless automation tool focused on simplifying configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. DeHaan aimed to provide a tool that was easier to use than other solutions available at the time, such as Puppet and Chef. This vision led to Ansible’s simple YAML syntax, agentless architecture, and reliance on SSH, which made secure communication straightforward and accessible.
In 2013, Ansible 1.0 was released, introducing several core features that are still widely used today, including the inventory system, playbooks, and modules...
