Hi friends. This is Luca Berton, and I’m here to present to you my latest creation, this wonderful Hands-On Ansible automation book. I’m super proud of this book because it’s something that I really would like to create for a long time. As you can see, this is not a one-day read, and I was trying to distill everything that I know about Ansible inside this book.
Let me first of all clarify that this book was designed for people who would like to learn Ansible from the beginning or for some experts who would like to update their knowledge about Ansible. So the purpose is just there are wonderful books in the market about Ansible. However, they were created five or six years ago when Ansible was on the rise, and they’re lacking some information.
Especially after the 2.9 transitions, we’re talking about the, since Ansible 2.10 onward, everything changed, especially with the introduction of the Ansible collection and then kind of like adding this part of the book, but not like designing everything around the collection. This book was created with this intent in mind.
This is why the first section is just installing and is totally about Ansible. And then, we are going to explore more about Ansible architecture and how they build a collaboration. And let me also show you exactly that. There are a lot of code inside of this book. This is the best part of learning.
I have always had this kind of stuff. You know me for the Ansible pilot project, and I always try to add a practical team. So, first of all, the first chapter is the introduction. That clarifies how the data center is moving from a traditional data center to a kind of infrastructure and how important it is for the business nowadays when chapter two is about Ansible’s basic and core concepts.
Everything about how to create an inventory. How to create a playbook, viable, you know, the loop, the facts, all these basic concepts that are very powerful and very important. Then, in chapter three, we move to extending Ansible capability, how we can use Ansible vote for encrypting the information, and how we can use the handler, role, and collection.
All these concepts are exemplified. I describe it with an example called, what I’m really proud of the following chapter. So after building the foundation about the language, we moved on with something spicy, something that really pit, really meaty. Part of the book is about managing Linux systems with Ansible, and specifically, what I know is sometimes hard for a new learner. Try to understand how to create a new file because we need to use the Ansible built-in copy module. That is not so easy, especially if you navigate the wonderful manual that is so wide, and sometimes you get confused. I was trying to distill the most useful task that day to day. So in Chapter four, managing Linux systems with Ansible, and in Chapter five, automating Windows infrastructure with Ansible.
So the same thing is true for creating users, listing files, managing the directory, all these tasks that are repeated, and we can automate easily inside the book. Now, chapter seven is the most fun part, how to. Scale up with Ansible Enterprise, but before going there, we need to move to chapter six. That is actually Ansible troubleshooting of the deployment.
All the nasty error codes that you can find out and the most common. The troubleshooting process, the troubleshoot is most important because, sooner or later, your code is gonna fail. And if you’re not, to keep it with high tools to understand the error and understand the dynamic behind the scenes, you can spend hours trying to understand.
So it was putting everything inside about the most common error. So then I would say Ansible Enterprise. So I’m referring obviously to the Ansible automation platform, but also some interesting alternatives like Ansible Semaphore, ARA, and X-Lab Spotter is a great tool for troubleshooting your code and spotting possible errors and security issues.
I’m so proud of the advanced Ansible techniques chapter, that is, how to integrate with third-party applications and the most common things like integrating with common enterprise software, Kubernetes, and the latest trend I’m talking about, even the, even Ansible. As well as the Ansible generative ai, Ansible light speed.
So everything is distilled inside. This lovely book, as you can see, is very common. It’s very nice with a lot, a lot of screenshots, a lot of code, a lot of, a lot of examples. So everybody can read and use reference videos. Just having a handbook, like a guide, that you can understand. And the best part is by the end, with some questions and answers to test your knowledge so you can be ready for your journey.
Even also you can prepare for an interview, and I think this is a great tool. As you can see, this book is published by a different publisher. I partner with BPB publication, which is a company based in New Delhi, India, because I know most of you are based in India, and it was a big request from you to try to lower the price, higher quality, and give you the best tool.
So, It is available worldwide. Unveil all the shops worldwide. I’m referring to Amazon, the most common bookshop where the book is sold nowadays. I know it seems so vintage by the book in 2023, but I’m so proud of this stuff because it is still all the knowledge that I learned with the Ansible pilot project about my career and working every day with Ansible.
A lot of newcomers in the team asked me what is the best way to upskill myself. So this book was designed for them and also for you. I can’t wait to hear your success story with Ansible and your honest feedback about the book. Thank you so much. Bye. Have a great (automation) day.
Academy
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