Automation and orchestration tools: Difference between revisions

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+== 2025 Update ==
+Today, there are two broad classifications of computer systems Automation and Orchestration - those that fall under the [[Kubernetes]] realm and those that can be classified as major cloud vendor's products. Of course there is crossover among them.  Another way to broadly distinguish between the various automation solutions is whether they are primarily concerned with provisioning resources, or applications and operations.  In this sense, HashiCorp's [[Terraform]] is the classic tool for provisioning cloud resources, while Ansible is the tool for provisioning '''applications''' and managing "Day 2" operations like security, configuration, and software updates on those provisioned resources.
+[[Ansible]], now owned by RedHat/IBM, has grown into a full complement of products and services (now called Ansible Automation Platform) and a full commercial ecosystem that span operations and automation across all the enterprise domains of Networking, Security, Service Managemnt, IT Infrastructure, Software Development, DevOps, Storage, Edge and Hybrid Cloud.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+
+! colspan="4" |Infrastructure as Code Automation
+|-
+! colspan="2" |Provisioning
+! colspan="2" |Config Mgmt / Operations
+|-
+!Vendor
+!Product
+!Vendor
+!Product
+|-
+|Hashicorp
+|Terraform
+|IBM / RedHat
+|Ansible
+|-
+|AWS
+|Cloud Formation
+|
+|
+|-
+|Microsoft
+|Azure Resource Manager
+|
+|
+|-
+|Google Cloud Platform
+|Cloud Deployment Manager
+|
+|
+|-
+|Docker
+|Docker
+|
+|
+|-
+|Oracle
+|OCI
+|
+|
+|}
+{| class="wikitable"
+!Consortium
+!
+!
+|-
+|Linux Foundation
+|Kubernetes
+|
+|-
+|Linux Foundation
+|OpenTofu
+|fork of Terraform
+|}
+One thing [[RedHat|Red Hat]] did was launch a Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collection for Terraform. This Red Hat-supported collection automates the management and provisioning of IaC using Terraform in an Ansible Automation Platform execution enviornment. You can find that in '''Ansible Galaxy''' at https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/cloud/terraform/docs/ or on '''GitHub''' at https://github.com/ansible-collections/cloud.terraform (Red Hat customers can find it in the [https://console.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/cloud/terraform Ansible Automation Hub])
+One gripe I have about Terraform is that you need to use HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) whereas Ansible is run by standard [[YAML]]. One clear distinction between the two is that while Terraform is declarative and immutable, Ansible is imperative and allows the flexibility to be mutable so that you can change complex infrastructure without needed to fully destroy and re-build it. They work well together in your toolbox because you can call Terraform (and other declarative / immutable IaC tools like AWS CloudFormation) from your Ansible execution environment.
+=== Sources ===
+* [https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/automation/ansible-vs-terraform Ansible vs Terraform]
+* [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/ansible-vs.-terraform-demystified Ansible vs Terraform - demystified]
+* {{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaffjN54PsY}}
+== 2016 ==
 We surveyed many automation and orchestration tools to get a sense for which tool was the most widely adopted or recent and powerful with a combination of good community and support.
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 ==== Ansible ====
-Ansible turns out to be an excellent choice for automation of DevOps
+[[Ansible]] turns out to be an excellent choice for automation of DevOps
 Public users of Ansible include/included Twitter, eBay, Rackspace, Electronic Arts, Atlassian, Evernote, NASA, Red Hat, Splunk, Go Pro, Care.com, edX (Stanford/MIT/etc), Carnegie Mellon, Harvard University, Industrial Light & Magic, Riot Games, and others.
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 ==== Docker ====
-With Docker as the provider in Vagrant, you do not need a 'base box'.  However, I'm not sure that I want to use Docker as a solution because one of the main points that I want to ensure is that the resulting environment should look as 'normal' as possible (e.g. mediawiki is installed in /var/www/example.com/_site/w) Also, Docker seems to like to provide a 'box' for each little service/daemon which is clearly overselling it.
+With Docker as the provider in Vagrant, you do not need a 'base box'.  However, I'm not sure that I want to use Docker as a solution because one of the main points that I want to ensure is that the resulting environment should look as 'normal' as possible (e.g. mediawiki is installed in /var/www/example.com/_site/w)
 ==== Cobbler ====
 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldehaan Michael DeHaan] originally wrote Cobbler, then worked at Puppet Labs (to bring Cobbler and Puppet more in line), and finally started and led the Ansible project, until it was bought by RedHat.  The Cobbler project is now led by James Cammarata, who works for Ansible, Inc.  In short, you can use both, but Cobbler is not 'better' than Ansible.  Ansible literally grew out of Cobbler's early roots.
+[[Category:Virtualization]]