Finally Starting with Ansible — The Magic of Automation in DevOps

 

Raees Qazi | DevOps Engineer | Learner | Mentor | Creator

Today, I’m finally starting my journey with Ansible — one of the most powerful tools in the DevOps world.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is a configuration management and automation tool. It helps us automate tasks like server setup, patching, updates, deployments, and configurations.

Let’s imagine a real-world example:
 Suppose you have 50 systems that need to be updated.
 Each system takes about 2 minutes to update.
 So, manually updating all of them will take around 1 hour and 40 minutes — not only time-consuming but also a tiring process.

Now, if we use Ansible, we can update all 50 systems in just 2 minutes — because Ansible performs updates in parallel on all systems at the same time.
 That’s the real power of automation!


How Ansible Fits in DevOps

DevOps is not just a set of tools — it’s a mindset and culture.
 In DevOps, we focus on automating repetitive tasks to save time, reduce errors, and speed up delivery (time-to-market).

Ansible plays a key role in this automation process.

How Ansible Works

Let’s say we have three machines:

  • One Master Node (where Ansible is installed)
  • Two Ubuntu Machines (our target nodes)

Now, how do these machines connect with each other?
 They communicate using SSH keys:

  • The Master node has the private key.
  • The Ubuntu machines have the public key.

This secure key-based authentication allows Ansible to connect to the target systems without needing a password every time.

Real Example — Installing Docker on Two Ubuntu Machines

Now, suppose we want to install Docker on both Ubuntu machines at the same time.

We just push one command from the Master machine, and Ansible will send it to both Ubuntu systems simultaneously through SSH.
 Within minutes, Docker will be installed on both systems — automatically and efficiently.
 That’s the magic (or “jadoo”) of Ansible! ✨

Installing Ansible on the Master Machine

Let’s see how to install Ansible step-by-step on an Ubuntu server (for example, an AWS EC2 instance).

  1. Launch an instance on AWS (Ubuntu).
  2. Update and upgrade the system:
  • sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade

3. Add the official Ansible repository:

  • sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible

4. Install Ansible:

  • sudo apt install ansible -y

5. Verify installation:

  • ansible --version

That’s it — Ansible is ready to use! 🎉

Final Thoughts

Ansible makes automation simple, fast, and powerful.
 It saves hours of manual work and reduces the chance of errors.
 Once you start using Ansible, you’ll realize how much easier system management becomes.

Jadoo is in front of you!
 I hope you liked my blog and found it easy to understand. 🚀

🌐 Online References


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

📘 Understanding Prometheus in a Simple Way-Part 3 (For DevOps Beginners)

Image
 In our previous blogs, we have already covered: How to launch an EC2 instance (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/prometheus-and-grafana-project-part-1-by-raees-yaqoob-qazi-12eb5c431350 ) How to run our Notes App inside a Docker container (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/prometheus-and-grafana-project-part-1-by-raees-yaqoob-qazi-12eb5c431350 ) How to install cAdvisor to collect container-level metrics (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/monitoring-containers-with-cadvisor-part-2-of-my-previous-blog-series-cec2452b1ba5 ) Today, we will move one step ahead and learn Prometheus , which will collect the metrics generated by cAdvisor. 🔍 What Is Prometheus? Before understanding Prometheus, let’s talk about how data is stored in databases . ✔️ Relational Databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) Data is stored in rows and columns  — like an Excel sheet. ✔️ Prometheus (TSDB — Time Series Database) Prometheus does NOT store data in tables.  It stores data in Time Series fo...
Read more

Grafana Setup & Dashboard Creation (Part-5)— Explained by Raees Yaqoob Qazi

Image
 Today, I’m going to talk about Grafana . Grafana is a powerful tool used to create dashboards and visualize data . As DevOps engineers, monitoring is very important, and Grafana makes it easy to understand system performance. Part-1:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/11/prometheus-and-grafana-projectpart-1-by.html Part 2:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/11/monitoring-containers-with-cadvisorpart.html Part 3:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/12/understanding-prometheus-in-simple-way.html Part 4: https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/12/understanding-prometheusmonitoring-made.html 1. Running Grafana Using Docker Compose First, I use Docker Compose to run Grafana. Open your docker-compose.yml file: vim docker-compose. yml Add the Grafana service: grafana: image: grafana/grafana-enterprise container_name: grafana restart: unless-stopped ports: - "3000:3000" Save and exit with:   :wq Then run: d...
Read more

My First Python Program: A Simple Calculator

Image
 Today, I am going to create a simple calculator using Python . This might be your first code ever , and honestly, this is also my first Python code . So don’t worry — we are learning together. Let’s start step by step. Step 1: Open VS Code First, open Visual Studio Code (VS Code) . Step 2: Create a Folder and a File Create a new folder (you can name it anything). Inside the folder, create a new file. In my case, I named the file first.py . 👉  .py is the file extension for Python , just like: .cpp for C++ .java for Java Step 3: Write the Python Code Now, write the following code in first.py : num1 = float ( input ( "Enter num 1: " ) ) # Taking first number from the user num2 = float ( input ( "Enter num 2: " ) ) # Taking second number from the user opr = input ( "Enter operator: " ) # User selects the operator (+, -, *) if opr = = "+" : # If operator is + output = num1 + num2 if opr = = "-" : # If operator is - ...
Read more