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Red Hat is buying Ansible

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Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#81

Post by jjnoakes »

qznc wrote: post #60
pilif wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought so too for a long time. Until that time when I upgraded the RAID10 on our database servers from a 4 drive to a 8 drive configuration (which requires rebuilding the whole array if you want the performance benefits). Getting the intricate configuration of the two machines (postgres streaming replication works, but has a lot of moving parts to keep in mind) back without having to remember any details was absol…

I don't think devit challenges the "automate" part, only the "separate tool" part. In Ansible you specify a sequence of commands just like you do in a shell script.

Take the time to learn a tool like Ansible. It is not about replaying a simple sequence of commands (imperative). It is more about declaring what you want your system to look like, and letting the tool decide which pieces need to run based on the current state of the system.

It's like make vs a shell script. If you use scripts to build your programs, you either have to write your own checks to test whether every step is necessary or not (cumbersome, error prone, and quite complex) or you just script it to build from scratch every time (inefficient).

But for systems management, rebuilding from scratch can be worse than just inefficient. Imagine if your script reinstalled MySQL from scratch every time you ran it...

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#82

Post by betaby »

qznc wrote: post #61

I always wonder why cf-engine is so unpopular on HN. It has some nice advantages like no dependency on ssh or a scripting language. It is not as simple to get started, though.

As a former user of puppet and chef, I would say cfengine has a higher entrance brier. It pays the efforts thought.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#83

Post by occsceo »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #58

If you're new to Ansible. I've created about two hours of free screencasts on it. It's a very simple to use and understand configuration management tool. https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/43-19-minutes-with-ansibl... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/45-learning-ansible-with-... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/46-configuration-manageme... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/47-zero-downtime-deployme...

thanks for putting these together

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#84

Post by INTPenis »

atsaloli wrote: post #76
xorcist wrote: post #20

Interesting! Ansible is great technology. Not as mature as Puppet or Chef, but it's getting there. However Red Hat is currently heavily pushing (what I understand to be) their own fork of Puppet inside Satellite 6. So quite a few RHEL customers in the process of rolling out the latest Satellite is probably going to want to hedge their investment in it. Perhaps there is some Red Hatter here who could comment?

Speaking of mature, CFEngine has been around since 1993 and is now in its third generation. I just wish they would do a little marketing.

I think what makes a product like ansible catch on is its use of a simple scripting language like python. This makes project participation more accessible.

Ordinary sysadmins can write their own ansible modules with ease. It's possible that cfengine has that now but ask sendmail about repairing an old reputation.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#85

Post by mugsie »

mattzito wrote: post #55

I think the price point here is about a couple of things: - Chef and Puppet are too expensive for most companies to acquire, and have too much operational cost for too little revenue - Ansible got a strong following in the SMB space, Red Hat probably thinks they can move that upmarket some - Ansible's agentless configuration management has potentially strong applicability in a container world (why do I need a chunky…

Yeah, OpenStack support will be a big thing for them I think.

Ansible is growing its OpenStack support, and they might see an opportunity for the RDO product.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#86

Post by TheRealWatson »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #58

If you're new to Ansible. I've created about two hours of free screencasts on it. It's a very simple to use and understand configuration management tool. https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/43-19-minutes-with-ansibl... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/45-learning-ansible-with-... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/46-configuration-manageme... https://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/47-zero-downtime-deployme...

Major kudos. These look awesome.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#87

Post by gerbilly »

anton_gogolev wrote: post #38
leg100 wrote: post #26

This clearly is much more about Tower, consultancy, etc, than their main product, but their yaml encoded language is an abomination; masquerading as 'declarative' and easy to read, yet piling on loops and conditional statements and an unintuitive inheritance tree of global and local variables.

Spot on. I'm constantly amazed at how many projects use _serialization formats_ as a "programming language". LiquiBase, NAnt, MSBuild, Ansible.

It seems like parsing is becoming a lost art.

Maybe because it can't be easily approached by the iterative development style that is in fashion these days.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#88

Post by hyperliner »

mianos wrote: post #9

If ansible is worth 100 what is saltstack worth?

Probably depends on who needs it. With almost no revenues, then it makes monetization only possible through enriching some platform. Maybe other major distro vendors will look at Chef, Puppet and Salt now and find them more expensive.

Here is the financial disclosure from RedHat. NOTICE THE FIRST SENTENCE.

The acquisition is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat's revenue for the third and fourth quarters of its fiscal year ending Feb. 29, 2016 (“fiscal 2016”). Management expects that non-GAAP operating expenses for fiscal 2016 will increase by approximately $2.0 million, or ($0.01) per share, in the third quarter and approximately $4.0 million, or ($0.02) per share, in the fourth quarter as a result of the transaction. Red Hat calculates non-GAAP operating expense by subtracting from GAAP operating expense the estimated impact of non-cash share-based compensation expense, which for fiscal 2016 is expected to increase by approximately $1 million for each of the third and fourth quarters, and amortization of intangible assets, which for fiscal 2016 is expected to increase by approximately $1 million for each of the third and fourth quarters, in addition to transaction costs related to business combinations, which are expected to increase by approximately $1 million in the third quarter. Management expects GAAP operating expense to increase for fiscal 2016 by approximately $5 million, or ($0.02) per share, in the third quarter and approximately $6 million, or ($0.02) per share, in the fourth quarter as a result of the transaction. Excluding the operating expense impact as noted above to GAAP and non-GAAP operating margin and GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share, Red Hat is otherwise re-affirming its fiscal 2016 third quarter and full year guidance provided in its Sept. 21, 2015, earnings press release.

Re: Red Hat is buying Ansible

#90

Post by mugsie »

devit wrote: post #43

Every time I use some "configuration management" tool I wonder whether it's really better than just using shell. Basically you lose a lot of time searching the web for how to do things that you already know how to do in shell, but the benefits are not so clear.

Just being able to have your tool know the list of servers, and their roles makes it worth it.

I did a fair bit of work based on the OpenStack tripleO project, which suffered from the OpenStack NIH syndrome. They could not agree on a CM tool, and wrote it in bash. Never, ever, ever again. Trying to cluster RabbitMQ / Percona across 3 different machines, via bash is an abomination, whereas in Ansible / Salt etc. it is pretty easy :)

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