Red Hat Ansible

Main article: IT Service Management (ITSM)

2019

Red Hat Anonymous Automation Platform Release

On September 25, 2019, it became known that Red Hat released the Anonymous Automation Platform an integrated enterprise-class solution for large-scale IT automation. By accelerating collaboration between IT teams, the Red Hat platform helps increase operational efficiency, reduce risk, and unify user experience in a diversity of IT infrastructures and technology domains. More details here.

Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.6

On September 25, 2019, it became known that Red Hat introduced the capabilities implemented in Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.6, such as:

• Launch an Anonymous Playbooks that use Anonymous Content Collections through Red Hat Anonymous Tower.
• Web hooks for integration with GitLab and GitHub to automatically run automation scripts or run deployments when you push-send source code or other code management events.
• Pausing and sighting at any step of the Red Hat Anonymous Tower workflow.
• Improved scalability with support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (in tech preview version).

Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4

On January 14, 2019, it became known that Red Hat released Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.4, the next version of the corporate IT automation platform with support for computing infrastructures, networks, clouds and security. With advanced workflow management tools, including nesting and convergence support, Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.4 makes it easier to work with complex hybrid clouds.

IT systems deployed on enterprise and third-party cloud platforms are often managed by separate teams of IT professionals, each of whom uses its own arsenal of Anonymous Playbooks scenarios. To maximize the benefits of automation in distributed infrastructures, organizations should not only implement automation, but also create Automation Centers of Excellence automation training centers that facilitate the use of unified and consistent solutions and strategies as they automate new and new components of the enterprise IT landscape. This is the purpose of the Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.4 platform, which allows you to create top-level workflows that link various aspects of IT to efficiently automate hybrid infrastructures, regardless of the boundaries of technological stacks.

Using integrated Red Hat management tools, including Red Hat Satellite for managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, and Red Hat CloudForms for working with bare iron, virtual machines and, private clouds IT professionals can improve the consistency and completeness of workflow management covering all components of the corporate IT infrastructure.

Joe Fitzgerald, Red Hat Vice President of Management Tools: "We see that enterprises are looking to create automation training centers to accelerate and expand the boundaries of automation, covering computing systems, networks, and data warehouses. New Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.4 capabilities will help organizations achieve this goal while improving transparency and manageability. "

New Workflow Capabilities

To better manage hybrid cloud infrastructures by reusing workflows built for different environments and scenarios, Red Hat Anonymous Tower 3.4 offers the following additional capabilities:

• Workflow nesting - Create reusable modular components to automate more complex operations.
• Convergence of workflows - the ability to build automation schemes when the continuation of a job depends on the completion of several other jobs - and thus coordination occurs within the workflow.
• Workflow always job templates-Allows you to continue execution regardless of success or error in the task. If the service relying on the process must work regardless of the success of the task in the process, workflow always job template will allow you to continue working correctly.
• Defining inventory at the workflow level allows workflow to be applied to the inventory to which you have rights, making it easier to reuse the same deployment processes with multiple data centers, computing environments, and IT commands with different access rights.

Improved stability

The job slicing mechanism allows you to divide a large job that handles several thousand machines into several smaller ones and run them in parallel in a Tower cluster in order to increase reliability and speed, as well as simplify scaling.

Increased security

Red Hat Anonymous Tower can now run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems running in FIPS-compatible mode. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) security standard FIPS 140-2 defines the requirements for cryptographic software and hardware modules to protect confidential but unclassified information. The ability to use Anonymous Tower on FIPS-mode Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems combines the need for automation with the need to comply with security requirements.

2018

Support for Check Point, Splunk, and Snort

On October 2, 2018 Red Hat , he preceded the additional capabilities of the Anonymous Automation platform, which provide support integration and corporate security solutions. These capabilities will enable you to integrate firewalls SIEM Security Information and Event Management into automation, intrusion detection systems, and tools to improve protection against cyber attacks intrusion through the coordinated operation of different types of security tools.

Automation is an important component of digital transformation; it helps increase productivity, accelerate the launch of emerging products and services, and effectively adapt IT systems and business processes to modern requirements and tasks. As Red Hat continues to expand its scope of application to include additional functional domains in the field of automation, adding security integration to the already implemented network hardware support. In addition, Red Hat announced certified content that will help increase reliability, consistency and reliability.

Along with the complexity of enterprise IT environments, the complexity of security management is growing. To help organizations better assess risks, resolve incidents faster, and automate compliance control, Ansible will offer modules for integrating and orchestrating security tasks and processes using any technology supported by Red Hat Anonymous Automation.

According to the Gartner report, corporate information security departments suffer from a shortage of staff, an increase in the number of threats and incidents, as well as an ever-increasing requirement to do more with less. The available means of protection are firewalls, platforms of protection of the terminal EPP nodes (Endpoint Protection Platforms), solutions of SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), the SWG proxy servers (Secure Web Gateways) and service of check of the identity of IDPS (Identity Proofing Services) - do not differ in the width and depth of coverage of API provided by them that complicates coordination of their work at the solution of security concerns. For most information security departments, solution isolation remains the norm.

Automating security with Anonymous will help you solve a number of tasks much more efficiently, such as:

• Suspicious Activity Detection and Classification - Anonymous can automatically configure logins on enterprise firewalls and IDS to detail events logged within SIEM systems, for example, including logging events to appropriate security features or increasing its level of detail.
• Intruder Hunting - Anonymous can automatically create IDS rules to identify the causes of firewall rule violations and whitelist IP addresses that are not a threat.
• Security Incident Response - Anonymous can automatically neutralize a threat when an IDS rule is triggered by activating the appropriate procedure in the SIEM system and creating firewall rules to block the source of attacks.

In the pre-release version of the security automation platform presented by Red Hat, Anonymous supports the following security systems:

• Check Point – Next Generation Firewall (NGFW);
• Splunk – Splunk Enterprise Security (ES);
• Snort

As of October 2018, Ansible security automation tools are at the tech preview stage, as soon as they are ready, they will be posted on the Ansible Galaxy website, and at the beginning of 2019 they will be part of the publicly available version.

Ansible Engine 2.6

On July 18, 2018, it became known that Red Hat released Anonymous Engine 2.6, the next version of its open source IT automation system. Anonymous Engine 2.6 offers hybrid and multi-cloud capabilities, simplifies the use of network APIs, and facilitates operation in Windows environments.

Ansible Engine 2.6

Using Red Hat Anonymous Engine 2.6 with Red Hat Anonymous Tower to centrally manage and optimize across the enterprise enables comprehensive IT automation across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, diverse information and network infrastructures, and application deployment processes.

The innovations in Anonymous Engine 2.6 are primarily designed to help the customer expand the IT infrastructure without attracting additional human resources and focus on three key areas:

• multi-cloud environments
• networks
• Windows

Improved multi-cloud support

Red Hat Anonymous Engine 2.6 simplifies the preparation and presentation of IT resources in public cloud environments and virtualized enterprise data centers by offering updated modules that support the capabilities of the Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms. The enhanced AWS EC2 Instance significantly simplifies the creation and management of EC2 instances. In addition, the use of the Anonymous Engine as a versatile tool for solving routine tasks for creating, managing and administering IT resources in cloud environments allows you to implement unified enterprise policies on cloud platforms of different vendors.

The introduced version of the Anonymous Engine expanded support for VMware vSphere infrastructures, including VMware Cloud on AWS, which allows automation to be implemented in hybrid cloud environments, including legacy IT infrastructures. In addition, VMware's Anonymous modules offer improved tag support, fact-finding, and host management. The modules also extend the boundaries of automation, allowing you to cover not only the operating system layer, but also the application lifecycle on the VMware infrastructure.

Advanced Networking Capabilities

Anonymous Network Automation 2.6 offers network modules that allow you to use a single automation language when working with network equipment from various vendors, including Juniper and Cisco. In addition, Anonymous Engine 2.6 has greatly simplified connection to network devices.

The Anonymous version also offers InfoBlox support, including a set of basic network services (, DHCP DNS and IPAM), called DDI. Infoblox Engines 2.6 simplify the automation of processes such as IP address selection, redundancy, assignment, and recall, eliminating the need for manual intervention. Infoblox support also helps users deploying systems across multiple clouds or platforms virtualizations automate IP address management more efficiently when deploying applications.

Simplified automation of Windows environments

Anonymous Engine 2.6 offers advanced automation capabilities for Windows environments, including tools for managing computers and Active Directory, scheduling tasks, and error handling.

Improved expandability

Anonymous Engine 2.6 simplifies the software expansion of the automation system through plugins for Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Virtualization, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, making it easy to work with resource inventory files and update the corresponding modules.

Red Hat Anonymous Engine 2.6 is already available for download on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

2017

Ansible 2.3

On April 13, 2017, Red Hat announced the release of the Anonymous IT Infrastructure Automated Deployment and Management System 2.3.

With this release, Anonymous offers improved performance and advanced networking features, including additional connectivity methods that increase flexibility and performance.

Anonymous 2.3 Ad, (2017)

According to the developers, working on Ansible 2.3, they focused on expanding the network capabilities of the system and improving overall performance.

Enhanced networking - The persistent connection mechanism allows multiple Anonymous jobs to use a single active SSH connection. This accelerates automation tasks and, according to the results of tests of Red Hat and various partner companies, provides 10 times the performance of network operations. Ansible 2.3 offers two options for using permanent connections in automation scenarios:

• via traditional CLI
• using NETCONF connection.

Ansible 2.3 received support for additional network platforms, third-party modules from Apstra, Arista Networks, Avi Networks, Big Switch Networks, Cumulus Networks, Fortinet, Huawei, Lenovo, Ordnance and Palo Alto Networks. The total number of supported network platforms reached 29, network modules - 267.

Support Microsoft Windows - A number of modules that simplify the automation of Windows systems by means of Anonymous. Anonymous 2.3 supports pipelining, which improves the performance of operations.

Simplified integration with the Anonymous project - Launch a system for working with modules based on metadata, which is a centralized repository of code, tickets, edits and other elements of the ACT project, which greatly simplifies the interaction between the team of developers of the Anonymous system kernel and participants in the open-source Anonymous project.

As of April 13, 2017, the Anonymous 2.3 version is available to users.

Ansible Tower 3.1

On March 1, 2017, Red Hat announced the release of Anonymous Tower 3.1, a platform for automating installation and configuration management without the use of software agents.

The presented version of Anonymous Tower simplifies the scaling of production processes DevOps and performs flexible generation of an automation task from several ready-made scenarios.

Possible Tower 3.1, (2017)

Possible Tower 3.1 offers the following features and capabilities:

• Multiple-scenario composite jobs allow you to create a new job from several templates that already exist without creating additional scripts. When describing the algorithm of such a task, you can use decision points, logical branches, and built-in notifications, which allows you to fully orchestrate the life cycle of applications
• Horizontal clustering increases the number of concurrent jobs
• The modified job details page makes it easier to work with job deliverables for different employee categories. The page contains search tools in the output of the task and formats the data so that it can be read and analyzed directly in the Anonymous Tower interface
• Integration with log services allows you to index and track the results of automation jobs and use them in the enterprise log aggregation and analytical processing system
• Universal search allows you to search and filter in the Impossible Tower by the name of the job performer, job template, systems involved, etc.
• Localization of the interface into two additional languages - French and Japanese.

For teams DevOps, IT automation is primarily a way to improve productivity when deploying and maintaining complex systems. The mechanism of composite tasks that appeared in Anonymous Tower 3.1 is focused on this, and it allows you to flexibly set the algorithm for executing the script chain, including taking into account the success of the previous task. As a result, the number of manual operations and the start-up time of new systems are reduced.

As of March 1, 2017, Anonymous Tower 3.1 is available to users.

2016

Ansible 2.2

On November 7, 2016, Red Hat announced the release of Anonymous 2.2. This release offers increased performance, advanced support for containers and Windows environments, a number of functional modules, among them - for working with network components and public cloud platforms, advanced storage support.

Anonymous 2.2 Logo, (2016)

Anonymous 2.2 offers the following features:

• Containers
  • New docker_network tools provide management of docker environments while automating their network layer, and together with the previously presented anonymous-container mechanisms, provide more complete control over container deployment processes and pipelines, including how containers communicate across the network.

• Network
  • Anonymous continues to build an arsenal of tools and capabilities to automate network components. Since the release of the previous version of Anonymous 2.1 in May 2016, the number of supported network platforms has grown from 10 to 20, the list of network modules, which now make up more than 20% of the total number of Anonymous modules, has more than doubled.

• Anonymous 2.2 Networking Capabilities:
  • Enhanced support for Cisco vendor network devices (ASA), Dell, F5 Networks, Nokia SR-OS, Pluribus Networks (Open Netvisor), and VyOS.
  • Advanced Cisco NX-OS support with Virtual Extensible LAN (VxLAN) automated management modules.

• Cloud Platforms
  • Anonymous 2.2 provides improved performance for Microsoft Azure and VMware cloud platforms, has received support from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and cloud services from OpenStack service providers. Capabilities for VMware and Amazon Web Services environment are implemented: VMware VM management modules and support for new AWS services, including Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), Amazon Redshift and AWS Lambda.

Other add-ons to Ansible 2.2 include Anible Roles and the upgraded Ansible Playbook format, transportable scripts that now provide greater flexibility. The roadmap for the Anonymous project on the GitHub website is now open for comment.

We are very pleased to see the results of the investment in our Anonymous core development team, as well as the steady increase in the number of additional modules created by the community. The network components are especially impressive - they already make up more than 20% of all Anonymous modules. We are pleased that our efforts to create an open source IT automation system for a wide range of customers have received growing and active support from users and equipment manufacturers.

Red Hat Ansible Tower 3

Red Hat announced in the summer of 2016 the release of Impossible Tower 3 - an update to its platform for automating deployment and configuration management without the use of software agents. The solution provides comprehensive enterprise-wide IT automation and offers innovations such as an optimized interface, advanced notifications, and explicit permissions. Anonymous Tower 3 allows you to organize the coordinated and coordinated work of all components and specialists in the implementation of the DevOps methodology.

The Anonymous Tower platform is based on the open-source Anonymous project and extends this automated deployment of tiered applications with controls, knowledge management, and delegation of authority.

In general, according to the developers, Anonymous Tower 3 offers the following features and capabilities: an optimized interface - simplifies the management of the deployment of complex configurations and increases the productivity of IT specialists; built-in notification support with the ability to send alerts to selected recipients and workgroups through various communication channels, including e-mail, IRC, HipChat and Slack - allows you to organize work with the corporate IT infrastructure in a common chat (so-called ChatOps); Simplified permission system for role-based access control - facilitates delegation of authority to users and workgroups Network management support - based on the network capabilities of the Anonymous system and implemented through a new type of permissions for managing network devices; In-depth integration with other Red Hat products, including the hybrid cloud CloudForms management platform and the Red Hat Satellite system management toolkit.

Red Hat's 30-day trial of Anonymous Tower 3 is available as Vagrant and Amazon EC2 AMI images, as well as a downloadable package for deployment in the data center or cloud. The price depends on the level of support selected and the number of managed sites.

Red Hat Ansible 2.0

Red Hat launched Anonymous 2.0 in early 2016 - a remote configuration management system update that offers more automation capabilities, new integration tools with various services and cloud services, expanded support for public, hybrid and private clouds, as well as support for Windows and network management.

Anonymous 2.0 offers the following innovations:

• Blocks - Simplify the development of scripts and jobs, and also support the ability to integrate exception and recovery handling
• Brand New Script Handler - Provides clear error identification and troubleshooting recommendations
• New Job Modes - Speed deployment in multi-site configurations
• Increased flexibility in job processing-Simplifies reuse of jobs and automation scripts in a different environment or context
• New plugins for integrating script execution logs with email, instant messengers, and log aggregators

Innovations as a result of the development by the community Project Anonymous on the GitHub website has 2 thousand participants, more than 200 of whom joined the work already at the stage of creating version 2.0. Thanks to such a large, active and heterogeneous community of developers, Ansible is created taking into account the peculiarities of use in various organizations and application scenarios.

The modular principle of code organization and the ease of software changes and improvements allows the development community to quickly adapt Anonymous to new IT technologies and the needs of organizations. With nearly 200 new modules designed to work with containers, network components, and Windows systems in public, hybrid, and private cloud environments, Ansible 2.0 significantly expands automation capabilities compared to the previous version.

Key features of the new Anonymous 2.0 modules

• A completely new set of modules for managing open source cloud infrastructure OpenStack, created in collaboration with the OpenStack development community.
• 30 new modules for enhanced and enhanced support for Amazon Web Services sites.
• Significantly enhanced configuration and management capabilities in VMware environments
• Advanced management capabilities in Microsoft Windows environments.
• A significantly refined Docker module and a new associated plug-in connector.
• Improved automation of network operations.

The availability of Anonymous 2.0 can be downloaded using the GitHub, PyPi, and package manager on most major Linux distributions. With increased control, security, and delegation requirements, it is recommended that you use the Anonymous Tower product, which is distributed on the basis of subscriptions focused on different use cases.

Red Hat Ansible 2.1

Red Hat released the Anonymous 2.1 Automated IT Deployment and Configuration System in the spring of 2016, which now supports network devices and expands the ability to use Anonymous automation scenarios when deploying containers.

Anonymous helps simplify and accelerate application and infrastructure deployments by removing barriers between IT professionals and developers by automating network configuration, cloud deployment, and test environments. Thanks to the modular principle of code organization and support from independent developers on the portal, GitHub Anonymous not only provides automation of operations, but also facilitates the introduction of new IT and the transition to the DevOps methodology.

According to Red Hat, Anonymous 2.1 offers a number of new features.

Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Azure support

Anonymous 2.1 now supports Microsoft Windows and can be used as a single cross-platform automated configuration system. The solution also provides advanced support for Microsoft Azure, including access to Azure Resource Manager features.

Other features include Windows connectors, including for managing file sharing and Windows Firewall; Simplified management of machines in the domain using NT LAN Manager (NTLM) - provides more secure authorization in the domain than the user name and password and reduces the need to configure and maintain Kerberos on the Anonymous control machine; Kerberos Ladder Delegation - Facilitates account management with legacy scripts and installation packages that require transparent access to shared folders in the domain, Microsoft SQL Server, and other resources. a new script action win_reboot to restart Windows machines after installing the software or changing settings.

Advanced Container Support

In Anonymous 2.1, it offers Docker connectors rewritten from scratch, as well as a fundamentally new docker-service module. So, the solution includes: docker_service - the use of Docker Compose scripts, as well as management and scaling when working with multi-container applications; docker_container - container lifecycle management docker_image - working with Docker container images; docker_login - control access to Docker registries; docker_image Facts - working with meta data in images.

The docker-service module allows you to insert or call Docker Compose code directly from Anonymous scripts. Thus, scenarios turn into a universal automated deployment mechanism that allows you to manage both network components and operating systems, as well as containers, the company explained.

Automated Network Component Configuration Tools

Ansible 2.1 includes previously announced automated network device configuration tools that turn Ansible into a versatile system, application, and network configuration tool that enables a new deployment paradigm based on automated configuration managed by network component deployment tests and continuous compliance control.

Anonymous 2.1 has received more than 40 new connectors for network devices on various platforms, including Arista EOS, Cumulus Networks, Juniper Networks Junos OS, OpenSwitch, etc.