Ansible
Ansible is an agentless automation tool commonly used for configuration management, orchestration, and application deployment.
Core model
- Uses inventory files to define hosts and groups.
- Uses playbooks (YAML) to declare desired state.
- Connects primarily over SSH and executes modules remotely.
Strengths
- Low setup overhead because no agent is required.
- Human-readable playbooks and broad module ecosystem.
- Works well for mixed infrastructure and ad hoc automation.
Trade-offs
- Push model can be slower at very large scale.
- Idempotency quality depends on module behavior.