Ansible Automation Platform changes the way modern IT teams manage infrastructure. But why is this ability so potent, particularly in the enterprise? If you are not sure what the differences are between Ansible and the enterprise Red Hat solution, this guide is designed to make everything clear for you. From automating workflows to hybrid cloud orchestration—all in this article: discover why companies are using Ansible Automation Platform to make complex IT work simple.
Whether you’re running 1,000s of nodes or just making them easier to manage, you can use the Ansible Automation Platform to provide an end-to-end automation framework that you can rely on with the security, scalability, and performance you want. And it’s more than just a tool—it’s a full automation environment for modern DevOps teams. Here, we explain what it is, how it works, and why companies use it rather than relying on traditional scripting and open-source programs.
What is Ansible Automation Platform?
Red Hat’s Ansible Automation Platform is an enterprise offering designed to make it easier to scale IT automation, manage complex deployments, and speed up time to value across hybrid cloud environments. It features a GUI dashboard, REST APIs, security controls, and role-based access to provide scalable automation workflows.
This platform has visual pipelines, analytics, and governance that the open-source Ansible CLI does not. There is also integration with other enterprise tools for consolidated management.
What Differentiates Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform from Open-Source Ansible?
The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an enterprise framework for extending open-source Ansible that integrates automation across systems, networks, cloud, and security providers, and provides capabilities for governance, analytics, and content management. These enable better visibility, governance, and how you operate.
| Feature | Open-Source Ansible | Ansible Automation Platform |
|---|---|---|
| CLI-Based | ✅ | ✅ |
| Visual Dashboard | ❌ | ✅ |
| RBAC & Auditing | ❌ | ✅ |
| Automation Analytics | ❌ | ✅ |
| Centralized Credential Handling | ❌ | ✅ |
| Certified Content Collections | ❌ | ✅ |
What Can Ansible Automation Platform Automate?
Over the past several releases, Ansible Automation Platform has been extending automation to include configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, and network orchestration, and in some cases directly incorporating principles of container civilization. It enables hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure on AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and others.
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You can also expand automation to firewalls, storage, and security devices, and it is a fit for large IT infrastructures.
How Does the Ansible Automation Platform Increase IT Efficiency?
It automates repetitive tasks, eliminates human error, and reduces the burden on operations from DevOps. Feeding data into a central automation controller, it offers visibility, scalability, and orchestration through role-based access and a single source of APIs.
It also gives you analytics and metrics on Automation Analytics to help you identify inefficiencies within your automation playbooks.
Features
- Control Plane: Manage all your playbooks, credentials, and inventories through a single UI.
- RBAC & Security: Authorize per team, organization, or location.
- Content Collections: Utilize roles from Red Hat and partners that are certified.
- Scale: Manage thousands of nodes with job templates and workflows.
- Compliance & Auditing: Get a track of changes and automation activities.
- Cloud Support: Automate deploys to AWS, Azure, GCP, and OpenShift.
How Does Ansible Automation Platform Support Multi-Cloud Automation?
It features cloud-native modules and roles for AWS, Azure, GCP, and OpenStack. It lets you write one set of playbooks to deploy to any cloud, and you don’t have to learn all the cloud SDKs.
This makes it ideal for hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure management.
Ansible Tower vs Ansible Automation Platform – Know The Differences
Ansible Tower used to be what is now the Automation Controller in the Ansible Automation Platform. The stack consists of Tower (now controller), Automation Hub, Automation Services Catalog, and Automation Mesh.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Automation Controller | Web UI and API for launching, tracking, and managing jobs. |
| Automation Hub | Central repository for certified content collections. |
| Automation Mesh | Connects automation nodes across locations. |
| Analytics | Real-time usage insights, success/failure metrics. |
CyberPanel & Ansible Automation
With CyberPanel, i.e., a web hosting control panel, users can leverage Ansible Automation Platform by taking advantage of Ansible playbooks to provision servers, deploy apps, and configure SSL. Using Ansible to automate your CyberPanel stack speeds things up, minimizes human errors, and seamlessly integrates into CI/CD workflows — it’s a godsend if you’re dealing with more than one VPS or hosting clients.
People Also Ask
Is Ansible Automation Platform available for free?
No. It is a paid enterprise product from Red Hat with a free trial.
Can I move from open Ansible to the Automation Platform?
Yes. Playbooks, in open-source Ansible, are 100% compatible.
Can small teams use Ansible Automation Platform?
It can be, but it’s really geared towards the larger end of deployments that require sys-auth, audit, and scale.
Wrapping Up!
Finally, if you’re looking for scalable, secure, centralized automation for this growing hybrid environment, Ansible Automation Platform is what you need. It’s for teams who require full visibility, compliance, and control over all of their tasks, servers, and pipelines.
Want to up your DevOps game? Adopt the Ansible Automation Platform today and future-proof your infrastructure!
