Managing Enterprise Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Training Course

Installing Ansible Automation Platform

• The functions of the platform gateway, automation controller, private automation hub, and Event-Driven Ansible controller.
• The role of execution environments and automation mesh within the overall architecture.
• Deployment strategies and enterprise topologies, covering containerised, RPM-based, and OpenShift Operator methods.
• Preparing the installer inventory and executing the installation process for the chosen deployment method.
• Initial platform access, subscription setup, and navigating the unified user interface.

2 Managing users and access permissions

• Establishing organisations, teams, and user accounts.
• Exploring local account management and centralised authentication methods like LDAP.
• Applying built-in roles, resource permissions, and permission inheritance rules.
• Controlling access to platform resources and private automation hub content.

3 Managing inventories and machine credentials

• Creating static inventories, defining hosts and groups, and setting associated variables.
• Setting up machine credentials using SSH keys, passwords, and privilege-escalation configurations.
• Understanding credential types and their application during job execution.
• Regulating administrative and usage rights for inventories and credentials.
• Verifying connectivity to managed hosts using ad hoc commands.

4 Managing projects and launching jobs

• Linking projects to Git repositories and setting up source-control credentials.
• Selecting branches and configuring project updates, including the update-on-launch feature.
• Leveraging execution environments and content provided via the private automation hub.
• Creating job templates and executing playbooks on managed hosts.
• Analyzing job output, execution events, and the activity stream.

5 Using advanced job template features

• Injecting job inputs via extra variables, launch prompts, and surveys.
• Configuring host limits, fork settings, verbosity levels, job slicing, and fact caching.
• Scheduling automated job runs.
• Configuring notifications for job initiation, completion, and failures.

6 Constructing automation workflows

• Building workflow job templates using the visual workflow editor.
• Connecting jobs via success, failure, and always branches.
• Setting up converging paths and recovery steps for failed operations.
• Incorporating approval nodes and managing approval timeouts.
• Initiating and scheduling workflows, as well as configuring workflow notifications.

7 Managing advanced inventories

• Importing inventory data from projects stored in Git repositories.
• Integrating dynamic inventory sources using inventory plug-ins.
• Scheduling inventory synchronisation and refreshing sources prior to execution.
• Building constructed inventories by merging existing sources and filtering hosts via variables and patterns.

8 Automating platform configuration

• Managing configuration-as-code using platform content collections, including ansible.controller, ansible.platform, and ansible.hub.
• Utilizing REST APIs, authentication tokens, and API calls from within playbooks.
• Automating the provisioning and configuration of organisations, projects, and job templates.
• Storing configuration playbooks in Git and triggering automation via webhooks.

9 Maintaining and troubleshooting the platform

• Oversight of services and locating logs according to the selected deployment method.
• Diagnosing common platform and job-execution errors.
• Using management jobs to maintain job history and activity-stream data integrity.
• Planning and executing backup and restoration procedures.
• Reviewing upgrade strategies and subscription management.

10 Scaling deployments with automation mesh

• Understanding the roles of control, execution, and hop nodes, considering hybrid-node behaviour where relevant to the deployment model.
• Connecting nodes via Receptor and designing mesh routes for remote or segmented networks.
• Managing instance groups, container groups, and execution capacity.
• Applying high-availability principles to platform components, databases, and load balancing.
• Assessing the impact of node or service failures on automation execution and recovery processes.

11 Comprehensive platform administration review

• Configuring private automation hub content according to provided specifications.
• Setting up an organisation complete with users, teams, inventories, credentials, and Git projects.
• Creating job templates and workflows that satisfy defined operational requirements.
• Reviewing access permissions, content availability, and automation execution across the configured environment.