In this module, you will learn the ins and outs of Ansible with the goal of managing and automating your infrastructure and code’s deployment.

DevOps for Developers

Ansible is one of the leading tools for software provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment. In this module, you will learn the ins and outs of Ansible with the goal of managing and automating your infrastructure and code’s deployment.

You will learn how to set up a docker environment, connect with cloud providers like AWS and Azure, manage infrastructure on AWS and Azure using Ansible, and lastly how to automate configuration and state management processes. Throughout each section, you will dive into the fundamentals of Ansible through practical and real-world scenarios.

By the end, you will have a great new skill that will open a lot of doors for you like cloud computing and DevOps. This will definitely be a good tool to put on your resume and will help you further your career.

Ansible

Infrastructure is rarely static. Existing infrastructure is scaled out or up. New infrastructure is deployed to support new applications or services. And sometimes, new infrastructure shows up. You don’t always know what it’s for, but you manage it anyhow.

Each of those events requires modifications to the _Ansible inventory_. Adding hosts to the inventory requires you to create a new entry in the `hosts` file and assign it to the appropriate groups. While doable, this can be cumbersome. Ansible solves the problem of __inventory management__ with __dynamic inventories__.

> <span>_**Destroyed Infrastructure**_</span><br>
> In case you deleted the Ansible development environment, make sure to re-deploy the infrastructure for [AWS](https://www.educative.io/courses/ansible-zero-to-production-ready/deploy-to-aws) and [Azure](https://www.educative.io/courses/ansible-zero-to-production-ready/deploy-to-azure#ansible-environment) by following the links.

# Dynamic inventory

A **dynamic inventory** uses an external source to generate the Ansible inventory. That external source can be: 
- Your cloud provider.
- An IP address management (IPAM) and data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tool such as Netbox.
- Even a custom script that generates JSON that Ansible can parse as an inventory.

# Plugins

Ansible provides a few ways to use dynamic inventories, but the recommended approach is to use an inventory plugin. For a full list, check out Ansible’s [plugin list](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/plugins/inventory.html). There are several inventory plugins available. However, we will only cover two: 
- `aws_ec2` for AWS
- `azure_rm` for Azure

Both plugins query the cloud provider for a list of instances or virtual machines at a high level. The results are then used to populate the `hosts` portion of an inventory. Group creation and membership are also dynamically created. 

## Parameters
The `aws_ec2` plugin uses either of the following parameters:
- `groups`
- `keyed_groups`

While the `azure_rm` plugin uses: 
- `conditional_groups` 
- `keyed_groups` 

Regardless of the parameter name, each of these plugins uses `hostvars` to determine group membership.


> ## Options
>You will create dynamic inventories for the _hosts/VMs_ deployed on `AWS` and `Azure`:
> - [AWS - Create a Dynamic Inventory](https://www.educative.io/courses/ansible-zero-to-production-ready/aws-create-a-dynamic-inventory).
> - [Azure - Create a Dynamic Inventory](https://www.educative.io/courses/ansible-zero-to-production-ready/azure-create-a-dynamic-inventory).
 

Introduction