Why Every Network Engineer Should Learn Ansible (Even If You’re Just Starting Out)

Just many of you , I also started my networking journey with manual config troubleshooting the various issue .

But actually we are spending so much time doing the task which can be done in minutes and worst of all ,when something went wrong , we had no way to audit or fix things .

🤖 Enter Ansible: My Automation Partner

Here comes the Superhero Ansible . We will be going through ansible from basic to intermediate to advance. You may see multiple post related to Ansible in coming days. It will have both theory as well as practical examples to try .

Main goal of Ansible series is -:

• Make Ansible simple and actionable

• Teach through networking-focused examples

• Blend theory + "Try This Now" practical’s

• Keep posts bite-sized & consistent

• Help readers build confidence to automate on their own

🛠️ So… What Exactly is Ansible?

Lets start with a theory what is ansible and why network engineer should care ?

Just many of you , i also started my networking journey with manual config troubleshooting the various issue .

But actually we ere spending so much time doing the task which can be doing in minutes .

Yes , its possible by Ansible. Its super tool which can help :

• Push consistent configs across devices

• Automate boring, repetitive tasks

• Reduce human error

• Save time (LOTS of it)

• Focus on what really matters

what really matters is that you need not be python expert.

Ansible is open source automation tool and we can say its task execution engine. What it means that we have to define the task and ansible will perform those tasks. Ansible is project written in python .

Its uses YAML file to read the task and execute it on the network devices.

It automated tasks such config management ,application deployment and much more.

It uses ssh to connect to nodes .It’s called as agentless as there is no need to install any agent to nodes where you require task to be executed.

Core component of Ansible :

• Playbook → File consist of list of plays and respective tasks.

• Inventory →File which identifies the hosts in your environment

• Variable → Are consumed at tasks level used as input to various tasks.

• Config file → Administrative file to control global setting related to ansible environment

Play is element of playbook and executed against a set of hosts . It consists a list of tasks .

Tasks are element of play executed in sequence .Each task calls a module. Modules are written in python and work behind the scene. They are like function already built and we need to call in respective tasks.

Playbook be something like-:

Just this 5-liner shows "it's not scary." Easy to understand and execute.

📌 Action Step for You Today

Just one: you will read concepts mentioned in detail and decide that you will try and execute with me with playbook coming in next post.

I’ll guide you, one simple post at a time.

We will discuss about the ansible environment installation and execution of our first playbook in next post .

Smiles:

Anurudh