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Ansible Automation - Use Case Gallery

This is not an article, but rather an ever-growing list of Ansible automation use cases that I update whenever I find new or potential use cases. Ansible is a powerful tool that can be used for infrastructure as code (IaC), security management, application deployment, configuration management, system and server automation, and cloud-related automation. Some of the important benefits of using Ansible include its ease of use, ability to automate repetitive tasks, and ability to enforce security guidelines and achieve compliance.

Let me know if you would like learn more about Ansible or if you have other questions.

Immutable Infrastructure

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Define your entire server set or application stack as version-controlled playbooks so any environment can be rebuilt identically on demand.
  • Deployment Strategy Automation: Implement blue-green, canary, and rolling deployment patterns to eliminate downtime and reduce risk during application releases.
  • Self-Service Infrastructure Catalog: Expose an AAP-backed service catalog so teams can provision pre-approved infrastructure configurations without waiting on operations.

AI Automation

Ansible now has certified/validated collections purpose-built for AI infrastructure (infra.ai, redhat.ai) plus provider-specific modules (e.g. Google Vertex AI), so AI/ML workloads can be provisioned and operated the same declarative way as everything else on this page.

AIOps

  • Event-Driven Automated Response: EDA listens for observability signals such as a systemd service failure or Prometheus alert, then immediately triggers a targeted Ansible remediation workflow without human intervention.
  • AI-Assisted Diagnosis: AAP coordinates with an LLM endpoint (e.g. Red Hat AI) to analyse the failing component, generate a root-cause summary, and notify the team via chat or ITSM.
  • Auto-Generated Remediation Playbooks: Ansible Lightspeed generates a remediation playbook from the incident description, syncs it to Git, and executes it as a job template — closing the loop automatically.
  • ITSM Ticket Enrichment: Enrich ServiceNow or Jira incidents with live system context — logs, metrics, topology — gathered by Ansible before the ticket reaches a human operator.

AI Infrastructure Deployment

  • AI Infrastructure Provisioning: Use the infra.ai collection to provision EC2 instances, VPCs, subnets, and security groups sized and configured for AI/ML workloads.
  • RHEL AI / OpenShift AI Node Configuration: Configure nodes with required packages, kernel settings, and container runtimes ready for RHEL AI or OpenShift AI deployment.
  • GPU Coordination: Automate GPU driver installation, CUDA configuration, and resource coordination across storage, networking, and compute layers.
  • Edge/IoT Device Onboarding: Enroll edge and IoT devices into the AI platform and configure data sync pipelines back to the central training or inference environment.
  • Secure Data Connectivity: Automate TLS configuration and credential distribution for training and alignment pipelines, including air-gapped or edge-connected environments.

Model Build and Data Pipeline

  • Vector Database Deployment: Deploy and manage vector databases (e.g. Milvus, Weaviate, Qdrant) that serve as knowledge stores for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) use cases.
  • Vertex AI Feature Store: Provision and manage GCP Vertex AI Feature Stores (gcp_vertexai_feature_store) to serve and reuse ML features consistently across training and serving environments.
  • Vector Search Index Management: Deploy and update Vertex AI vector search indexes (gcp_vertexai_index) for similarity search and RAG retrieval in production environments.

Model Inferencing

  • InstructLab Inference Endpoint: Use the redhat.ai collection to deploy InstructLab, fetch a fine-tuned model, and launch an OpenAI-compatible inference endpoint.
  • Model Server Validation: Automatically validate that the model server is healthy and returning coherent responses to test prompts after each deployment or restart.
  • API-Driven Model Serving: Expose models over HTTP/API using OpenAI-compatible or Llama Stack interfaces, making them consumable by downstream applications without code changes.
  • Agentic Workflow Deployment: Deploy AI agents and reasoning engines on Vertex AI (gcp_vertexai_reasoning_engine) that can plan and execute multi-step tasks autonomously.

AI-Assisted Content Generation

  • Ansible Lightspeed Task Generation: Use Ansible Lightspeed to generate playbook tasks and roles from plain-language descriptions, accelerating development and reducing authoring errors.
  • AI-Triggered Remediation Authoring: When EDA fires an event or an ITSM incident is raised, automatically generate a candidate remediation playbook using an LLM and queue it for review.
  • Module Documentation Generation: Auto-generate DOCUMENTATION, EXAMPLES, and RETURN blocks for Ansible modules using LLM assistance, reducing repetitive authoring work.
  • Continuous Improvement Loop: Feed test results back to the LLM to iteratively refine generated playbooks until they pass validation — a closed-loop quality gate.

Provisioning

Provision your bare-metal, private cloud and public cloud infrastructure using modules and configure them to use for day 2 operations.

  • Bare Metal Provisioning: Automate OS installation, network configuration, and baseline hardening for physical servers using PXE, Foreman, or Red Hat Satellite.
  • VM Provisioning from Templates: Deploy virtual machines on RHV, VMware, or Hyper-V from golden image templates with pre-configured OS, disk layout, and network settings.
  • Deployment Strategy Automation: Orchestrate blue-green, canary, and rolling deployments across VM or container fleets to reduce risk and enable zero-downtime releases.
  • Self-Service Infrastructure Portal: Back an AAP-driven service catalog so teams can request pre-approved infrastructure configurations without involving operations directly.
  • For cloud-specific provisioning (AWS, Azure, GCP) see Cloud Automation.

Application Deployment

Manage your application deployments, re-deployments, and migrations using simple Ansible playbooks, and implement DevSecOps methods across your infrastructure operations.

  • On-Demand Rollback and Forward: Automate version pinning and rollback so any application release can be reversed within minutes without manual intervention.
  • Hybrid Resource Lifecycle Management: Manage configuration and lifecycle of on-prem and off-prem resources uniformly over SSH, WinRM, or API — no per-platform tooling required.
  • GitOps-Driven Delivery: Trigger AAP job templates from Git events so every merge to main automatically deploys the latest application version through tested promotion gates.
  • Container Application Management: Deploy, update, and roll back containerised applications on Docker hosts or Kubernetes clusters using declarative playbooks.

Security Management

  • Incident Response Automation: Automatically isolate affected hosts, capture forensic data, and notify security teams the moment a security event is detected.
  • Fortigate Configuration Backup: Back up Fortigate firewall configurations to a secure store on schedule, ensuring a known-good restore point is always available.
  • Fortigate Failover and Failback: Orchestrate failover to standby Fortigate appliances and coordinated failback once the primary is restored, reducing MTTR significantly.
  • Security Agent Deployment: Install and configure security agents (Imperva, Trend Micro, McAfee, Splunk UF, Nessus, Carbon Black EDR) consistently across your entire fleet.
  • CyberArk Credential Retrieval: Integrating Ansible Automation Platform with CyberArk to retrieve credentials — fetch just-in-time privileged credentials at runtime without storing secrets in playbooks.
  • Palo Alto Patching: Automate software updates and hotfixes on Palo Alto firewalls with pre- and post-patch validation to maintain security posture without manual steps.
  • Palo Alto Lifecycle Management: Provision new Palo Alto instances, deprovision decommissioned ones, and automate firmware upgrades across the firewall fleet.
  • F5 Patching: Automate BIG-IP software upgrades using rolling update strategies that maintain traffic continuity throughout the patching window.

Package Deployment

  • Windows Package Management: Windows Package Management — install, update, and remove software packages on Windows hosts using Chocolatey or the native package manager, with a consistent audit trail.

OpenShift Container Platform - Automation

OpenShift Day 2 Operations

  • Cluster Upgrade: Automate OpenShift cluster upgrades through the update channel with pre-upgrade health checks and post-upgrade validation to ensure a safe, repeatable process.
  • Worker Node Auto-Scaling: Automatically scale worker node count up or down based on workload demand by managing MachineSets through Ansible.
  • AD Group Synchronisation: Sync Active Directory or LDAP groups to OpenShift RBAC roles on schedule to keep access permissions aligned with the corporate directory.
  • Time Synchronisation: Enforce consistent NTP/chrony configuration across all cluster nodes to prevent certificate and distributed-system timing issues.
  • Cluster Housekeeping: Automate routine maintenance tasks such as log rotation, temp file cleanup, and resource quota review across namespaces.
  • Object Pruning: Prune stale builds, deployments, images, and namespaces on a schedule to reclaim cluster resources and reduce operational noise.
  • Certificate Rotation: Automate rotation of internal cluster certificates and ingress TLS certificates before expiry with a zero-downtime rollout.

Business Continuity

  • etcd Backup: Schedule and validate etcd backups on control-plane nodes, shipping archives to external storage so the cluster state can be restored after a failure.
  • GTM Failover: Automate Global Traffic Manager (GTM) DNS failover to a standby cluster when the primary fails health checks, reducing downtime during regional outages.
  • Cluster Rebuild and Recovery: Orchestrate full cluster rebuild from backed-up etcd and infrastructure state to minimise RTO after a catastrophic failure.
  • Node VM Snapshots: Take pre-maintenance snapshots of master and worker node VMs so the cluster can be rolled back quickly if an upgrade or change causes issues.

Application Deployment/CD

  • Namespace Creation: Automate namespace provisioning with resource quotas, limit ranges, and RBAC role bindings applied at creation time for consistent multi-team environments.
  • Network Policy Enforcement: Deploy and manage Kubernetes NetworkPolicies to control pod-to-pod traffic and enforce microsegmentation across namespaces.
  • Application Deployment and Testing: Deploy application manifests, run smoke tests, and validate readiness probes before marking a release as successful.
  • Application Upgrade: Orchestrate rolling upgrades of application workloads with automated health checks and rollback on failure.

Compliance

  • CIS OpenShift Scanning: Run CIS benchmark scans against the OpenShift cluster and generate structured compliance reports for audit purposes.
  • Compliance Operator Integration: Leverage the OpenShift Compliance Operator to apply SCAP profiles and automatically produce HTML compliance reports for regulatory submissions.

Operating System Patching

Linux

  • RHEL/SUSE Satellite Patching: Automate patching of RHEL, CentOS, and SUSE hosts via Red Hat Satellite with pre- and post-patch health checks and automatic reboot orchestration. (Linux OS Patching Using Ansible)
  • Errata-Based Patching: Apply only security or bugfix advisories from Satellite content views, giving precise control over which CVEs are remediated in each maintenance window.
  • Patch Scheduling with Rollback: Schedule patches within approved maintenance windows and automatically restore from snapshot if post-patch validation fails.

Windows

  • WSUS-Driven Patch Management: Orchestrate Windows updates via WSUS with category filtering (security, critical, feature updates) and configurable reboot policies across the fleet. (Windows Updates with Ansible | Automate Windows updates | Ansible Blog)
  • Coordinated Fleet Reboots: Stage reboots across Windows server fleets with pre-patch VM snapshots, ensuring a clean restore point before any changes are applied.

Both

  • Firmware Upgrades: Automate firmware updates for physical and virtual server fleets with vendor-specific modules, reducing manual work and eliminating configuration drift.
  • Patch Compliance Reporting: Identify unpatched hosts across the estate, generate remediation priority reports, and feed results back into ITSM workflows automatically.
  • Rollback Management: Restore hosts to a pre-patch known-good state (snapshot or package downgrade) automatically when post-patch health checks fail.

Weekly System Reboot

  • Scheduled Reboot Automation: Eliminate repetitive, manual processes with automated weekly system reboot — schedule coordinated reboots with pre/post health checks across any number of servers.

Security and Compliance

Rules are rules. Automate security enforcement so standards are applied consistently and verifiably across every host.

Hardening

  • CIS Benchmark Hardening (Linux): Apply CIS Level 1 and Level 2 hardening profiles to RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu hosts using validated roles, with pre/post compliance scoring to measure improvement.
  • CIS Benchmark Hardening (Windows): Enforce CIS Windows Server baselines — audit policies, registry settings, service states — idempotently across the fleet.
  • Kubernetes and OpenShift Hardening: Apply CIS Kubernetes and OpenShift benchmark controls to cluster nodes and API server configurations to reduce the attack surface.
  • Hardening Rollback: Apply hardening, run validation tests, and automatically revert to the pre-hardened state if a required service or application fails post-hardening checks.

Compliance Scanning and Reporting

  • OpenSCAP Scanning (Linux): Run OpenSCAP or SCAP Workbench scans against RHEL/SUSE hosts, generate XCCDF results, and publish HTML reports ready for auditors.
  • Windows Compliance Management: Audit Windows hosts against STIG or CIS baselines — checking audit policies, registry keys, and password policies — and report all deviations.
  • Linux Compliance Management: Enforce SELinux modes, auditd rules, password complexity, and file permission baselines across Linux fleets with automated drift detection.
  • Compliance Drift Remediation: Detect configuration drift from approved baselines on every run and automatically remediate deviations without waiting for the next change window.
  • Audit Report Generation: Generate HTML or PDF compliance reports on demand or on schedule for internal audits and regulatory submissions.

Vulnerability Management

  • Nessus / Nexpose Integration: Trigger Tenable Nessus or Rapid7 Nexpose scans, ingest findings, and auto-remediate low-risk CVEs without waiting for a formal change window.
  • Antivirus Deployment: Deploy and configure antivirus agents (Trend Micro, Symantec, CrowdStrike Falcon, Carbon Black) consistently across Windows and Linux fleets.
  • EDA-Triggered Remediation: Use Event-Driven Ansible to watch vulnerability feeds or SIEM alerts and automatically launch targeted remediation job templates.
  • VAPT Orchestration: Coordinate vulnerability assessment and penetration testing scans, aggregate findings, and generate consolidated reports for the security team.

Disaster Recovery

  • Cross-Stack DR Orchestration: Automate recovery sequences that span multiple technology layers — network, storage, compute, and application — eliminating manual cross-team handoffs during an outage.
  • DR Runbook Execution: Convert manual DR runbooks into tested, idempotent playbooks that can be executed on demand or triggered automatically by monitoring events.
  • Failover and Failback Automation: Orchestrate failover to standby sites and coordinated failback to primary once it is restored, with validation gates at each step.
  • RTO Reporting: Measure and report actual recovery time against RTO targets after each DR test or real event to demonstrate SLA compliance.

Ad Hoc Commands

  • Fleet-Wide Command Execution: Run one-off commands across hundreds of servers in seconds using ad hoc Ansible commands — no playbook authoring required.
  • Targeted Fact Gathering: Collect system facts (OS version, disk usage, running processes) from any subset of inventory on demand for quick operational insight.
  • Immediate Remediation: Apply a fast fix — restart a service, clear a temp directory, update a single config value — across all affected hosts in a single command.

Database and Middleware

  • Database Installation and Configuration: Install and configure MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle DB, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB with consistent settings, users, and initial schemas across all environments.
  • Middleware Platform Deployment: Deploy and configure WebLogic, Apache, NGINX, Tomcat, WebSphere, and JBoss EAP with standardised tuning and security baselines.
  • Database Health Check: Run automated health checks against MySQL, MSSQL, and Oracle DB — checking connectivity, tablespace usage, and replication lag — and alert on anomalies.
  • DB Housekeeping and Archival: Automate routine maintenance for MySQL and Oracle: archive old partitions, rebuild indexes, update statistics, and purge expired data on schedule.
  • Ad Hoc Backup and Restore: Trigger on-demand backups or restores for MySQL, MSSQL, and Oracle DB outside the regular schedule as a pre-change safety net.
  • Database Patching: Apply database vendor patches (PSUs, RUs, hotfixes) with pre/post validation and rollback capability to keep databases current without manual steps.
  • DB Hardening and Compliance: Apply CIS database benchmarks for MySQL, MariaDB, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL and generate compliance reports for auditors.
  • Collaboration Platform Lifecycle: Install, upgrade, and configure platforms such as Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Bamboo, MinIO, and IBM MQ with repeatable, version-controlled playbooks.
  • Service Start/Stop/Restart: Coordinate ordered start, stop, and restart of database and middleware services across multi-tier application stacks, respecting dependency order.
  • Middleware Patching: Apply patches and cumulative updates to WebLogic, JBoss EAP, and Tomcat with rolling strategies to maintain availability throughout the patching window.

Ansible Oracle Modules

  • ansible-oracle-modules — community modules for managing Oracle DB objects (tablespaces, users, grants, parameters) directly from Ansible playbooks.

Database Binary Patching

  • Binary Patch Application: Automate the download, staging, and application of database binary patches (OPatch, CPU, PSU) to keep database software current without manual steps or downtime.

Service License Agreements

  • Subscription Inventory Reporting: Gather subscription and entitlement data from all registered hosts and generate consolidated reports showing coverage gaps and upcoming renewal dates.
  • Auto Renewal Reminder: Send automated email or ITSM notifications ahead of subscription and license expiry dates so renewals are never missed and compliance is maintained.

Infrastructure Management

  • VM Provisioning from Templates: Deploy virtual machines on RHV, VMware, and Hyper-V from golden image templates with pre-configured OS, network, and storage layouts.
  • VM Snapshot Management: Take, manage, and delete snapshots on RHV and VMware VMs before changes or patching windows to provide a quick rollback point.
  • Configuration Consistency Enforcement: Ensure all VMs are configured identically against a defined baseline, detecting and remediating any drift automatically on every run.
  • Bare Metal and HPC Provisioning: Automate provisioning of physical servers and HPC cluster nodes including OS installation, firmware configuration, and network setup.
  • Business Continuity for Virtual Workloads: Orchestrate VM replication, snapshot policies, and failover sequences to meet RTO/RPO requirements for virtualised workloads.

VMware

  • Datacenter and Cluster Management: Create and manage vCenter datacenters and clusters; configure HA, DRS, and resource allocation settings to ensure consistent and highly available compute across the estate.
  • Resource Pool Management: Create and manage resource pools with defined CPU, memory, and storage shares so different workloads receive guaranteed resources without contention.
  • Virtual Network Management: Configure distributed virtual switches, port groups, and VLANs within vCenter; automate network provisioning for new applications and enforce network security policies.
  • Storage Management: Provision and manage datastores (NFS, VMFS, vSAN); create storage policies aligned to performance and protection tiers; automate volume rescanning and extension.
  • Datastore Cluster and Storage DRS: Create datastore clusters, enable Storage DRS for automatic VM load balancing, and configure SIOC to prevent I/O contention across shared storage.
  • Content Library Management: Automate creation and synchronisation of content libraries across vCenter instances so VM templates and ISO images are consistently available at every site.
  • vSphere Update Manager (VUM): Orchestrate patching and updating of ESXi hosts, VMware Tools, and virtual appliances through VUM with scheduled maintenance windows and compliance reporting.
  • vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM): Automate image-based ESXi host management using vLCM to enforce desired firmware and software state across the entire host fleet with minimal manual intervention.
  • RBAC Management: Automate creation and assignment of vCenter roles and permissions so access policies are enforced consistently and administrative tasks are safely delegated without privilege sprawl.
  • Alarms and Events Management: Configure vSphere alarms for critical events and integrate with external monitoring systems to trigger automated incident response workflows.
  • Certificate and Entitlement Management: Automate certificate issuance, renewal, and entitlement assignment for VMs, and manage OS and application package installation as part of the VM lifecycle.

Manage Network Configurations

  • Device Configuration Standardisation: Deploy identical baseline configurations to new network devices on day one, eliminating manual CLI work and ensuring consistency across the estate.
  • VLAN and Interface Provisioning: Add new VLANs or virtual interfaces across Cisco IOS/XE, NX-OS, and ACI fabrics through a single playbook, dramatically reducing change lead time.
  • Firewall Rule Management: Add, modify, or remove firewall rules on Palo Alto, F5, and cloud firewalls (AWS, Azure) with version-controlled change records and rollback capability.
  • AlgoSec / Tufin Orchestration: Integrate with AlgoSec or Tufin to validate firewall rule requests against policy before pushing changes, automating the change advisory board process.
  • Load Balancer Orchestration: Automate F5 and cloud load balancer configuration changes in coordination with OS update cycles to maintain application availability throughout patching.
  • SD-WAN Automation: Provision and configure SD-WAN edges (vEdge, Cisco SD-WAN) including transport profiles, policies, and zero-touch provisioning at branch sites.
  • Infoblox IPAM Integration: Allocate and release IP addresses through the Infoblox API so every provisioned host gets a registered, managed IP without manual IPAM updates.
  • SolarWinds Asset Management: Automate device registration, deregistration, and attribute updates in SolarWinds to keep the CMDB accurate after every infrastructure change.
  • Configuration Backup: Back up running configurations from Cisco IOS/XE, Palo Alto, F5, and ACI on schedule and store them in version control for change auditing and rollback.
  • Network Compliance Checking: Run compliance checks against Cisco ASR, CSR, 9K, ACI, SD-WAN, F5, Palo Alto, and AlgoSec; flag deviations from approved security baselines.
  • Network Device Hardening: Apply hardening profiles to Cisco, F5, Palo Alto, and AlgoSec devices, enforcing CIS or vendor security benchmarks across the entire network estate.
  • Network Device Patching: Automate OS and software upgrades for F5, Infoblox, and vEdge devices with pre/post health checks and rollback capability to minimise upgrade risk.
  • PKI Certificate Management: Issue, renew, and distribute certificates to network devices; alert on expiring certs and automate renewal before they cause unexpected outages.
  • Palo Alto User and Session Management: Automate user provisioning, NSP configuration, firewall session management, and deprovisioning workflows on Palo Alto devices.
  • Event-Driven Network Health Checks: Use Event-Driven Ansible to trigger automated health checks and state validation on network devices in response to monitoring or SIEM alerts.
  • Dynamic Compliance Reporting: Gather device facts and generate structured compliance reports showing pass/fail status against policy baselines for audit and operations teams.

Certificate Lifecycle Management

  • Automated Certificate Issuance: Issue TLS certificates automatically via Let’s Encrypt (ACME), HashiCorp Vault PKI, or Red Hat Certificate System, eliminating manual CSR workflows entirely.
  • Proactive Certificate Renewal: Renew certificates before expiry based on configurable threshold checks, preventing unplanned outages caused by expired certs across servers, load balancers, and devices.
  • Fleet-Wide Certificate Distribution: Push renewed certificates to servers, load balancers, and network devices in a single coordinated playbook run with service reload included.
  • Revocation and Replacement: Revoke and replace compromised certificates across large fleets within minutes, limiting the blast radius of a key compromise event.
  • TLS Configuration Enforcement: Enforce approved cipher suites, TLS versions, and certificate parameters across all endpoints, automatically remediating any configuration drift detected.
  • ACME Integration: Use the ACME protocol with DNS or HTTP challenge validation to fully automate domain-validated certificate issuance without manual approval steps.

Identity and Access Management

  • Red Hat IdM / FreeIPA Deployment: Deploy and configure IdM server and replica topology with DNS, Kerberos, and a certificate authority integrated and ready from day one.
  • User and Group Lifecycle: Automate creation, modification, and deactivation of users and groups in IdM with HBAC rules, sudo policies, and host enrollment applied consistently.
  • Active Directory Domain Join: Automate Linux and Windows system domain join — including DNS registration and Kerberos configuration — at VM provisioning time.
  • LDAP / AD Group Synchronisation: Synchronise LDAP or Active Directory groups into AAP, OpenShift, and application platforms on schedule to keep RBAC aligned with HR changes.
  • Privileged Access Management (PAM): Integrate with CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, or BeyondTrust to retrieve just-in-time credentials at runtime, removing long-lived secrets from playbooks.
  • SSH Key Distribution and Rotation: Distribute authorised SSH keys to server fleets at provisioning time and rotate them on schedule to reduce the risk from compromised keys.
  • RBAC Enforcement: Define and enforce role-based access policies across hybrid infrastructure, ensuring no system deviates from the approved access model.

Red Hat Satellite and Subscription Management

  • Host Registration: Automate registration and unregistration of RHEL hosts with Red Hat Satellite or Subscription Manager, applying the correct activation key and lifecycle environment.
  • Content View and Lifecycle Management: Create and promote Satellite content views through lifecycle environments (Dev → QA → Prod) on schedule to control which packages reach each tier.
  • Errata Publishing and Patching: Automate errata publication, content view promotion, and host patching workflows in Satellite so security advisories are applied without manual steps.
  • Disconnected Satellite Synchronisation: Manage content synchronisation and repository mirroring across disconnected or air-gapped Satellite instances to keep them current.
  • Subscription Compliance Reporting: Generate subscription inventory and auto-attach reports to identify unregistered or over-entitled hosts before they trigger compliance findings.
  • Golden Image Builds: Build RHEL golden images that incorporate Satellite-managed content, pre-registered subscriptions, and approved package versions for consistent VM deployments.

Edge and Disconnected Environments

  • RHEL for Edge Node Provisioning: Build and deploy rpm-ostree-based RHEL for Edge images with Image Builder, giving edge nodes an immutable, rollback-capable OS out of the box.
  • Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Configure remote and branch-site nodes to self-configure on first boot using pre-staged playbooks, eliminating the need for on-site engineers.
  • Air-Gapped Environment Management: Manage disconnected and air-gapped environments using mirrored Ansible collections and offline content, with no internet access required at runtime.
  • Low-Bandwidth Configuration Push: Push incremental configuration updates to edge devices over constrained or intermittent network links using efficient, idempotent playbooks.
  • Edge-Local EDA Remediation: Deploy Event-Driven Ansible at the edge to detect and remediate local faults autonomously, without requiring a round-trip to a central controller.
  • IoT Device Onboarding: Enroll IoT sensors and edge gateways into the managed estate and configure data sync pipelines back to central AI or analytics platforms.
  • Credential Rotation Without Persistent Connectivity: Rotate certificates and credentials on edge nodes during scheduled sync windows, even in environments with no continuous connectivity.

Application

  • CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Integrate AAP job templates with Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or GitHub Actions pipelines so Ansible handles the infrastructure and configuration leg of every deployment.
  • Application Deployment: Deploy application artefacts to target servers or containers with environment-specific configuration injected at runtime from Ansible variables or Vault.
  • Middleware Lifecycle Management: Install, upgrade, configure, and decommission middleware (Apache, Tomcat, NGINX, IIS) consistently across environments using shared, version-controlled roles.
  • IIS and MS-SQL Installation: Automate IIS web server and Microsoft SQL Server installation and configuration on Windows hosts using WinRM-based Ansible modules.
  • Windows .NET Application Deployment: Deploy .NET applications to IIS on Windows, including application pool configuration, binding setup, and post-deploy smoke tests.
  • Application Health Check: Run automated application-layer health checks — HTTP endpoints, service states, port availability — and alert or trigger self-healing on failure.
  • Dynatrace Integration: Trigger Dynatrace webhook notifications on deployment start and completion so performance baselines reset automatically after every change.
  • Jira ServiceDesk Integration: Create, update, and resolve Jira Service Management tickets automatically as part of deployment or incident remediation workflows.

Config Management

Keep your configurations as code, detect drift from approved baselines, and automatically remediate any unauthorised changes.

  • RHEL and Windows Patching with Satellite/WSUS: Coordinate OS patching through Red Hat Satellite (RHEL) and WSUS (Windows) with consistent pre/post validation and compliance reporting.
  • Red Hat Clustering Setup: Automate Pacemaker/Corosync cluster configuration, resource agent deployment, and fencing setup for high-availability Linux services.
  • Infrastructure Health Check: Run scheduled health checks across servers, services, and middleware and publish results to a dashboard or ITSM tool for operations visibility.
  • Windows AD Onboarding: Automate domain join, OU placement, GPO application, and DNS registration for new Windows VMs at provisioning time.
  • CyberArk Vault Integration: Retrieve credentials from CyberArk at playbook runtime using the AAM or CCP provider, removing all plaintext secrets from automation.
  • DR Failover for AAP: Automate failover of Ansible Automation Platform itself to a standby instance, preserving job history and restoring automation operations with minimal downtime.
  • Golden Image Management: Build, validate, and distribute golden OS images incorporating approved packages, hardening, and Satellite registration for consistent VM deployments.
  • Configuration Drift Management: Continuously compare live host configuration against approved baselines and automatically remediate any drift detected between scheduled runs.

System and Server Automation

  • VM Lifecycle Management: Automate provisioning and deprovisioning of Windows 2019/2022 and RHEL VMs, including all post-build configuration, at the speed of a job template run.
  • Compute Resource Scaling: Scale VM CPU and memory allocations up or down on demand across RHV, VMware, and cloud platforms without manual hypervisor interaction.
  • Virtual Disk Management: Add, extend, or remove virtual disks from VMs and automate the corresponding OS-level partition and filesystem operations in the same playbook.
  • Agent Deployment: Install and configure monitoring, backup, APM, and security agents (McAfee, SCCM, Splunk UF, Dynatrace) consistently across new and existing hosts.
  • Domain Join Automation: Automate Windows and Linux Active Directory domain join, including DNS registration and Kerberos configuration, as part of the provisioning pipeline.
  • Patch Management: Orchestrate OS patching for Windows (WSUS) and Linux (Satellite) with maintenance window controls, reboot management, and compliance reporting.
  • Server Hardening: Apply CIS or custom security baselines to newly provisioned servers automatically before they enter production, with drift detection on every subsequent run.
  • Health Check Automation: Run scheduled health checks across Windows and Linux servers — disk, memory, CPU, services — and push results to monitoring or ITSM platforms.
  • Service Orchestration: Coordinate ordered start, stop, and restart of services across multi-tier stacks, respecting dependency order and validating each tier before proceeding.

Cloud Automation

Amazon Web Services

Using amazon.aws and community.aws collections.

  • Compute: Provision and manage EC2 instances (amazon.aws.ec2_instance), launch templates, and Auto Scaling Groups; start/stop/terminate fleets on schedule
  • Networking: Create and manage VPCs, subnets, route tables, internet gateways, NAT gateways, and security groups (amazon.aws.ec2_vpc_net, amazon.aws.ec2_security_group)
  • Load Balancing: Provision Application Load Balancers, target groups, and listener rules (community.aws.elb_application_lb)
  • Storage: Manage S3 buckets, bucket policies, lifecycle rules, and cross-region replication (amazon.aws.s3_bucket, amazon.aws.aws_s3)
  • Databases: Provision and configure RDS instances, parameter groups, subnet groups, and read replicas (community.aws.rds_instance)
  • IAM: Create and manage users, roles, policies, and instance profiles; enforce least-privilege access (amazon.aws.iam_role, community.aws.iam_policy)
  • Containers: Provision EKS clusters, manage node groups, and deploy add-ons (community.aws.eks_cluster, community.aws.eks_nodegroup)
  • Serverless: Deploy and update Lambda functions, configure triggers, and manage layers (community.aws.lambda, community.aws.lambda_event)
  • DNS: Manage Route 53 hosted zones, A/CNAME/MX records, and health checks (community.aws.route53, community.aws.route53_health_check)
  • Registry: Manage ECR repositories, lifecycle policies, and image scanning (community.aws.ecs_ecr)
  • Secrets: Rotate secrets in AWS Secrets Manager and sync to Ansible Vault or HashiCorp Vault (community.aws.aws_secret)
  • Monitoring: Create and manage CloudWatch alarms, dashboards, log groups, and metric filters (community.aws.cloudwatch_metric_alarm)
  • Messaging: Provision SQS queues and SNS topics; configure subscriptions and dead-letter queues (community.aws.sqs_queue, community.aws.sns_topic)
  • Organizations: Vend and configure new AWS accounts, apply SCPs, and enforce baseline guardrails (community.aws.aws_account)
  • Cost Control: Set budget alerts and tag enforcement policies; identify and remediate untagged resources
  • Patching: Coordinate OS patching with SSM Patch Manager and report compliance back to AAP

Microsoft Azure

Using azure.azcollection collection.

  • Compute: Provision and manage Azure Virtual Machines, scale sets (VMSS), and availability sets (azure_rm_virtualmachine, azure_rm_virtualmachinescaleset)
  • Networking: Create and manage Virtual Networks, subnets, NSGs, route tables, and public IPs (azure_rm_virtualnetwork, azure_rm_securitygroup)
  • Load Balancing: Deploy Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway, and Traffic Manager profiles (azure_rm_loadbalancer, azure_rm_appgateway)
  • Storage: Manage storage accounts, blob containers, file shares, and lifecycle management policies (azure_rm_storageaccount, azure_rm_storageblob)
  • Databases: Provision Azure SQL Database, Managed Instances, PostgreSQL Flexible Server, and CosmosDB (azure_rm_sqldatabase, azure_rm_postgresqlserver)
  • AKS: Deploy and manage Azure Kubernetes Service clusters, node pools, and RBAC bindings (azure_rm_aks, azure_rm_aksversion)
  • App Service: Deploy and configure Azure App Service plans, web apps, function apps, and deployment slots (azure_rm_webapp, azure_rm_functionapp)
  • Identity: Manage Azure Entra ID (formerly AAD) users, groups, service principals, and app registrations (azure_rm_aduser, azure_rm_adgroup)
  • Key Vault: Create Key Vaults, manage secrets, keys, and certificates; enforce access policies (azure_rm_keyvault, azure_rm_keyvaultsecret)
  • Container Registry: Manage Azure Container Registry repositories, webhooks, and geo-replication (azure_rm_containerregistry)
  • Monitoring: Configure Azure Monitor alert rules, action groups, Log Analytics workspaces, and diagnostic settings (azure_rm_monitorlogprofile)
  • Policy: Apply and audit Azure Policy definitions and initiative assignments for compliance (azure_rm_policydefinition, azure_rm_policyassignment)
  • Arc: Onboard and manage Azure Arc-enabled servers and Kubernetes clusters for hybrid governance
  • Cost Management: Apply resource tags, budgets, and spending alerts across subscriptions and resource groups
  • Patching: Coordinate OS patch orchestration via Azure Update Manager and report compliance

Google Cloud Platform

Using google.cloud (gcp_*) collection.

  • Compute: Provision and manage GCE instances, instance templates, and managed instance groups (gcp_compute_instance, gcp_compute_instance_template)
  • Networking: Create and manage VPC networks, subnets, firewall rules, and Cloud Router (gcp_compute_network, gcp_compute_firewall)
  • Load Balancing: Deploy HTTP(S), TCP/UDP, and internal load balancers with backend services and health checks (gcp_compute_backend_service, gcp_compute_url_map)
  • Storage: Manage Cloud Storage buckets, IAM bindings, lifecycle rules, and object-level permissions (gcp_storage_bucket, gcp_storage_bucket_access_control)
  • Databases: Provision Cloud SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server) instances, users, and databases (gcp_sql_instance, gcp_sql_database)
  • GKE: Create and manage Google Kubernetes Engine clusters and node pools (gcp_container_cluster, gcp_container_node_pool)
  • IAM: Manage service accounts, IAM roles, and project-level bindings (gcp_iam_service_account, gcp_iam_role)
  • DNS: Manage Cloud DNS managed zones and resource record sets (gcp_dns_managed_zone, gcp_dns_resource_record_set)
  • Pub/Sub: Provision Pub/Sub topics and subscriptions for event-driven architectures (gcp_pubsub_topic, gcp_pubsub_subscription)
  • Artifact Registry: Manage Artifact Registry repositories for container images and packages (gcp_artifactregistry_repository)
  • Vertex AI: Provision Feature Stores, vector search indexes, and reasoning engines for ML workloads (gcp_vertexai_feature_store, gcp_vertexai_index)
  • Security: Configure Cloud Armor WAF policies, VPC Service Controls, and Security Command Center findings
  • Billing: Apply budget alerts and spending caps at project and folder level
  • Organization: Manage GCP Organization policies, folders, and project hierarchies for governance at scale

Multi-Cloud Governance

  • Consistent Tagging Enforcement: Enforce resource tagging, naming conventions, and cost allocation policies across AWS, Azure, and GCP from a single AAP workflow, eliminating the inconsistencies that cause billing and compliance issues.
  • Cross-Cloud Cost Visibility: Generate unified cost reports spanning all cloud providers, flag untagged or idle resources, and trigger automated right-sizing or decommission workflows.
  • Account / Subscription / Project Vending: Automate provisioning of new AWS accounts, Azure subscriptions, or GCP projects with baseline guardrails — IAM policies, logging, budget alerts — applied at creation time.
  • Policy-as-Code Drift Remediation: Detect configuration drift against approved baselines (AWS SCPs, Azure Policy definitions, GCP Org Policy constraints) and remediate non-compliant resources automatically.
  • Cross-Cloud Identity Federation: Automate federation of identity providers across AWS IAM Identity Center, Azure Entra ID, and GCP IAM to enforce unified role mappings and access policies.
  • Unified Backup and DR Orchestration: Coordinate backup schedules and DR failover sequences spanning multiple cloud providers from a single control plane, ensuring consistent RTO/RPO across all environments.
  • Network Interconnect Automation: Configure VPN gateways, transit gateways, and inter-cloud peering to maintain secure, consistent connectivity between cloud environments.

Operational Task

  • System Health Check: Run automated health checks against Windows, Linux, MySQL, and Oracle DB hosts on schedule, generating dashboards and alerts for any anomalies detected.
  • Network Device Health Check: Validate the operational state of AlgoSec, Infoblox, ACI, Firepower, routers, F5, and Palo Alto devices and report results to operations teams.
  • Service Start/Stop/Restart: Coordinate ordered start, stop, and restart of server, database, and application services across multi-tier stacks with dependency-aware sequencing.
  • Incident Remediation: Execute pre-approved common remediation playbooks — disk cleanup, service restart, cache flush — automatically in response to monitoring alerts, reducing MTTR.
  • Database Operational Tasks: Automate routine DBA tasks — log file management, statistics gathering, index maintenance, and session management — on schedule or on demand.

Emerging Use Cases

A few additional use cases worth exploring as your Ansible practice matures:

  • Event-Driven Automated Remediation: Use Event-Driven Ansible (EDA) to listen for monitoring alerts, log patterns, or webhook events and trigger targeted remediation job templates without human intervention.
  • Custom Execution Environment Lifecycle: Automate the build, test, publish, and update cycle for custom AAP Execution Environments so teams always run automation in a known, versioned container.
  • Secrets Rotation with HashiCorp Vault: Integrate with HashiCorp Vault to automatically rotate database passwords, API keys, and service account credentials on schedule without application downtime.
  • ITSM-Triggered Remediation: Connect ServiceNow or Jira Service Management to AAP so approved ITSM tickets automatically launch the correct remediation playbook without a manual handoff.
  • GitOps Infrastructure Reconciliation: Use Ansible as the enforcement engine in a GitOps loop — any divergence between Git state and live infrastructure is detected and reconciled automatically.
  • Compliance-as-Code in CI/CD: Run compliance scans against infrastructure changes in CI pipelines and block non-compliant configurations from reaching production, shifting compliance left.
  • Supply Chain Security: Generate SBOMs for Ansible content, track provenance of collections and roles, and scan dependencies for known vulnerabilities before automation is deployed.
  • FinOps Automation: Detect cloud cost anomalies or budget threshold breaches via EDA and trigger automated right-sizing, scheduling, or decommission workflows to reduce waste.
  • Ansible Lightspeed in Developer Workflows: Integrate Ansible Lightspeed into VS Code so developers generate correct, collection-aware task code from natural language without leaving their editor.
  • Confidential Computing Configuration: Automate setup and validation of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and confidential VMs to protect sensitive workloads from privileged access attacks.