Ansible Automation Platform, HashiCorp Terraform and Vault!

Welcome to Ansible Automation Platform, HashiCorp Terraform and Vault!

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has the ability to automate and extend tools that are currently used in organizations, meaningthat you can integrate technologies that you are already using and have time and skills investments in. Using Ansible Automation Platform as a central automation platform for an organization’s ecosystem of tools can automate and extend their ability to complete tasks and meet priorities. Use Ansible Automation Platform as a force multiplier to get more value from tools already in place in the organization!

In this lab, we will delve into the use of Ansible Automation Platform with HashiCorp Terraform and HashiCorp Vault. These tools can be used together to automate the entire infrastructure lifecycle, including building to deploying, to managing, and to retiring infrastructure.

Terraform excels at day-zero cloud infrastructure provisioning (IaC), building consistent infrastructure. However, for day-one configuration and application deployment, Ansible Automation Platform is more suitable. While these tools have overlapping capabilities, it’s simpler to view Terraform as more suited for initial provisioning and Ansible for ongoing configuration and orchestration, aligning tools with team responsibilities (e.g., Cloud Ops for build, App Teams for deployment). Seamless transition between day-zero and day-one tasks requires robust inventory synchronization and data exchange between Terraform Enterprise (HCP Terraform (formerly Terraform Cloud) and Ansible Automation Platform.

Beyond deployment, Ansible Automation Platform manages day-two operational tasks such as health checks, incident response, patching, and optimization. When decommissioning infrastructure, Terraform Enterprise efficiently handles resources it provisioned, but Ansible Automation Platform is crucial for management of related infrastructure or component services not owned by Terraform (e.g., load balancers, security groups). This holistic view across the hybrid cloud infrastructure lifecycle, from provisioning to retirement, necessitates strong integration and communication between Terraform Enterprise and Ansible Automation Platform.