Automate IT operations seamlessly! Browse key insights to hire the best Ansible developers to ensure efficient deployments and infrastructure management.
Developers are constantly looking for ways to automate processes in a reliable and scalable way to help them do their work more efficiently without losing accuracy. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a solid solution for configuration management, task automation, and application deployment. It provides simple yet powerful automation for computer support across all platforms.
Aimed mainly at Information Technology professionals, Ansible facilitates the deployment of applications, as it does not depend on agent software. Engineers use Ansible for a variety of automation and upgrade purposes, including application deployment, intra-service orchestration, cloud provisioning, server and workstation upgrades, and virtually any other task a system administrator performs on a regular basis.
It has no additional security infrastructure, so this IT automation tool makes work easier and more reliable. Obviously, the goal of Ansible is to make an IT professional's life easier through automation, but that means it requires instructions to get each job done.
Ansible Developer Hiring Guide
There's a reason why Ansible is at the forefront of automation, systems administration, and DevOps processes. It allows configuration of not just a single computer, but potentially an entire network, while requiring little to no programming skills as the system has human-readable instructions.
Ansible makes it easy for users to monitor and manage version control because everything written is in a simple script format. This is a major contribution to “infrastructure as code” services, which are based on the idea that maintaining a server alongside the client's infrastructure needs the same treatment as the software development process. Includes self-documenting and executable solution repositories.
There are many other more mature IT automation tools on the market today, including Puppet and Chef, but most organizations turn to Ansible because of its simplicity. Ansible uses YAML, a simple configuration language, while similar systems are a little more complicated and difficult to learn due to their use of Ruby. This is an extremely attractive feature for sysadmins as they don't have to deal with very complicated languages.
Working with Ansible is also quite simple thanks to the use of “Ansible Modules”, which are small programs sent to connect the nodes of a system. It allows deployment and connection using the SSH agent to run the modules, which are removed when complete. Systems administrators don't need to worry about servers, daemons, or databases, as these modules can reside anywhere on the machine.
While other software automation tools previously ranked at the top of the charts in terms of developer and specialist need, the rise of DevOps means that Ansible has taken over the others. Originally, it may have had questionable support, but Ansible now offers quality support thanks to its ownership by Red Hat, which promotes its open source nature. Since DevOps roles earn some of the highest salaries on the market, Ansible by Red Hat helps developers and systems administrators earn even more.
Interview Questions
How does Ansible stand out from other configuration tools?
Ansible is simple, as it uses simple syntax written in YAML called “playbooks”. It is powerful and flexible as it helps administrators and developers orchestrate the entire application environment, no matter where it is deployed. Ansible is agentless, meaning it does not have additional agents, software, or firewall ports required for installation on client systems or hosts. As an efficient system, Ansible presents modules as the most basic building blocks of the software, so that companies and individuals have the ability to customize it according to their needs.
What are the Ansible modules?
Modules are small sets of programs designed to perform a specific task or to automate a wide range of tasks. In Ansible, these modules make multiple identical requests with the same effect as making a single request. There are 2 types of modules: main modules and extra modules. The Ansible team maintains core modules and always keeps track of Ansible itself. They are typically given a slightly higher priority in terms of support compared to extra repositories. Ansible (or Red Hat) hosts these modules on GitHub as source. Extra modules are also provided with Ansible and are also maintained by the Ansible Community. Although these non-core modules receive slightly lower response rates for pull requests and issues, they are still fully usable. Over time, popular extra modules are sometimes promoted to core modules. Ansible also hosts them on GitHub.
What kind of server requirements are there for Ansible?
Ansible requires Windows users to work in a virtual machine that runs Linux, as it also runs on UNIX. The server must also feature Python 2.6 or higher.
What is Ansible Tower?
Ansible Tower is a more enterprise-grade Ansible. It is a web-based solution for organizations that features a super simple user interface through a dashboard. This dashboard includes status summaries for all hosts, while enabling rapid deployment and monitoring of all configurations. Tower allows users to share SSH credentials without exposing them directly, manage inventories graphically and synchronize them across multiple different cloud providers, and log all work.
Job description
We are looking for an experienced systems administrator and developer to manage our automation services in Ansible. The ideal candidate has strong and extensive technical experience in designing, developing, deploying and supporting automation solutions using Ansible. They must also demonstrate some knowledge of general IT skills.
Responsibilities
- Design and develop Ansible automation
- Manage and maintain automation
- Writing technical documentation
- Run regression, system, and unit tests
- Collaborate with system administrators to fix bugs
Skills and qualifications
- 3-5+ years of experience in Ansible automation
- Experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution
- 3+ years of experience in programming languages such as Python, Shell and Perl
- Continuous integration expertise
- Deliverability with Red Hat Ansible Tower
- Experience with DevOps tools
If you liked this, be sure to check out our other DevOps articles.
- DevOps Hiring Guide
- How to hire a DevOps engineer
- A Guide to Implementing DevOps in Healthcare
- What is infrastructure as code and why should it matter to your company?
- Infrastructure is becoming code