If you’re involved in IT automation, configuration management, or DevOps, you’ve probably heard about Ansible. But did you know that this powerful open-source tool offers much more than just automating repetitive tasks? With a simple setup, agentless architecture, and growing community support, it continues to revolutionize how system administrators and developers manage infrastructure.
Here are 10 lesser-known things about Ansible that will help you get the most out of it.
1. No Agent Required
One of Ansible’s biggest advantages is its agentless architecture. Unlike other automation tools that require installing agents on each managed node, Ansible connects via SSH and uses Python, which is available by default on most Unix-based systems. This makes it incredibly easy to set up and maintain across environments.
đź”— Learn more about agentless setup
2. Simple, Human-Readable Syntax
Ansible uses YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) for creating playbooks, which are essentially automation scripts. YAML is straightforward and intuitive, even for beginners. Unlike JSON or XML, it doesn’t require brackets or complex structures, which makes it highly readable.
Whether you’re managing servers, applications, or containers, you’ll find writing Ansible playbooks far less intimidating.
đź”— Explore YAML syntax
3. Ansible Scales Effortlessly
From startups managing a handful of servers to enterprises orchestrating thousands of nodes, Ansible can scale without added complexity. You can organize your infrastructure using inventories, which list all the systems you want to manage. Combine this with dynamic inventory plugins, and Ansible can even pull data from cloud platforms like AWS or Azure.
đź”— Check out dynamic inventory documentation
4. Built-in Cloud Integrations
Ansible provides out-of-the-box support for major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Automating cloud infrastructure becomes seamless with modules that handle everything from provisioning virtual machines to configuring load balancers.
This eliminates the need for separate scripts or manual setup across different cloud ecosystems.
5. Ansible Galaxy: A Hidden Gem
Not sure how to start writing a playbook? Head over to Ansible Galaxy. It’s a community-driven repository where developers share reusable roles and collections. You can search for ready-made automation solutions, download them, and integrate them into your own workflows.
It’s like a plug-and-play marketplace for automation tasks—saving you time and reducing the risk of errors.
6. Idempotency for Safe Re-Runs
One of Ansible’s core strengths is idempotency. This means that you can run the same playbook multiple times, and the result will remain consistent. It ensures that your infrastructure won’t experience unnecessary changes with repeated executions, making it perfect for production environments.
This behavior is built into its modules and provides peace of mind during deployments and updates.
7. Ansible Is More Than Just Servers
Ansible isn’t limited to managing Linux servers. It supports network automation, meaning you can manage switches, routers, and firewalls from companies like Cisco, Juniper Networks, and Arista. Using modules like ios_config and junos_config, you can configure networking hardware with the same playbooks you use for your applications.
8. Completely Open Source and Community-Driven
Ansible is maintained as an open-source project under the GNU General Public License. Its source code is available on GitHub, where developers across the world contribute to its growth. The community is vibrant and highly responsive, with regular updates, bug fixes, and new features being added.
You can also find thousands of questions and answers about it on Stack Overflow, making it easy to troubleshoot issues and learn best practices.
9. Security-Focused Features
Security is critical in automation, and Ansible handles it well. It communicates over secure protocols like SSH, reducing the attack surface. Moreover, it offers a feature called Ansible Vault, which lets you encrypt sensitive variables like API tokens, passwords, and SSH keys.
Vault ensures that your secrets are not exposed in your playbooks or version control systems like GitHub or Bitbucket.
10. Backed by Red Hat for Enterprise Support
Since Red Hat acquired Ansible in 2015, it has received robust enterprise-grade features. The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers additional capabilities like visual dashboards, centralized logging, role-based access controls, and certified content.
For businesses looking for more than open-source capabilities, this platform provides scalability and compliance on a larger scale.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re a systems engineer, DevOps professional, or cloud architect, Ansible is an invaluable tool. Its simplicity, scalability, and wide-ranging functionality make it ideal for modern IT environments. But what sets it apart is how easily it adapts—from managing a single app server to automating complex hybrid cloud environments.
These lesser-known features can help you get more out of Ansible, improve infrastructure reliability, and save countless hours in operations.
đź”— Ready to dive deeper? Explore Ansible official docs
