Red Hat Ansible Tower has come a long way after starting as AWX confined initially to IT teams for enterprise automation (with tasks like application deployment and multi-tiered orchestration) and configuration management. The tool presents powerful features like an automated CI/CD pipeline and has even introduced approval nodes in the 3.6 version. Modern work environments have now been renovated further with the introduction of customizable notifications resulting in a user-friendly approach. In fact, users on GitHub and GitLab are bound to benefit more from features such as workflow pauses and better integration. Increased employee productivity is one of the benefits obtained from such a feature-rich tool.
Tokyo-headquartered SoftBank is one of the full-fledged implementing partners of Ansible Tower. It all started with the decision from top management to reduce the number of working hours on a serious note. After a lot of deliberations, Ansible Tower was chosen to automate SSL Certificates instead of the manual processes leading towards increased employee time savings. Red Hat Ansible Tower has helped SoftBank in improving organizational productivity after the automation of its core IT activities, according to Mochizuki Hirokazu, President and Representative Director, Red Hat K. K. More such instances could be witnessed in near future on automating IT tasks because of the prestigious events like AnsibleFest Atlanta in 2019 that would be organized on a regular basis.
Security automation has widely opened options for cyber security firms to protect their customers. CyberArk has struck a sparkling deal with Ansible Tower for the same. Meanwhile, it is considered as a boon for such firms with the power of integration for their customers. Timely alerts would be triggered whenever a user inadvertently clicks upon a malicious link or a lethal attachment. The provision of credentials to access Amazon Web Services over the cloud will result in increased security without compromising the threats.
Ansible Engine has been revved up as part of reinfusing confidence among customers along with Red Hat’s automation tool. External contributors would now be allowed to perform crucial activities such as incorporating plugins and integrating modules as per the latest requirements. Apart from these advancements within the platform, the surprise element that packs a punch is the availability of RHEL 8 support. As for the synchronization with external vaults, it offers support for Microsoft Azure Key Vault.
Tower’s tryst with integrations doesn’t just end up there as there are more in store. Before anyone could imagine integrating it with a powerful database solution in the backend, Crunchy Data has ventured a step forward by working out a collaborative model involving Red Hat Ansible Tower and PostgreSQL. Delving more into the details, the challenge of associating open-source database systems with a powerful automation tool like Ansible Tower has been successfully addressed with Postgres. Eventually, it is regular innovations brought in such as workflow automation and standardization that sets Ansible Tower far away from the rest. With the current focus on hybrid cloud management, additional enhancements could be experienced through nested workflows that would replicate the concept of playbooks.
