Blog: Introducing Ansible Automation Platform 2.0 Early Access

The Ansible Team has been hard at work finalizing the next major release of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. While the official launch is slated for Content from www.ansible.com is not included.AnsibleFest 2021 in September, we are inviting interested customers to participate in an early evaluation of the 2.0 release, which is now available.

What does “early access” mean?

Early access means that any Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscriber has the ability to download, install, and file support cases against this newly released 2.0 version of the product. Because there are additional core features and functionality that are slated for the 2.1 release later this year, the formal marketing launch for both 2.0 and 2.1 versions will happen later this year at AnsibleFest. Therefore, many of the typical resources (such as documentation, blogs, etc.) will only be made available on the Red Hat Customer Portal until formal launch at AnsibleFest.

What’s New with 2.0?

The main focus was to enhance the foundational pieces of the Ansible Automation Platform to enable automators to “go to the next level” with their automation at enterprise scale. What this means is that everything you know and love around writing Ansible Playbooks is largely unchanged, but what is evolving is the underlying implementation of how automation is developed, managed, and operated to help with large complex environments.

So how did we get here? It’s been two years in the making, which included the following changes:

• Content from www.ansible.com is not included.Separated Ansible content from the Ansible executable in the Ansible Project, by creating a new construct called an Content from www.ansible.com is not included.Ansible Collection to house Ansible modules, plugins, roles and more.
  The past year and a half has been spent relocating the vast majority Ansible content (modules, plugins) into standalone Ansible Collections developed and maintained separate from the Content from github.com is not included.Ansible open source project. The main benefit is that the updating of Ansible content is no longer dependent on the updating of the Ansible project itself, allowing for asynchronous releases of content while maintaining stable releases of the Ansible executable.

• Separated the control plane from the execution plane in Ansible Tower, and renamed these components automation controller and automation execution environments respectively.
  Ansible Tower was split into two components: automation controller (control plane) and automation execution environments (execution plane) in order to better scale and provide more predictable automation for enterprises. By splitting Tower into two components, one will soon be able to have execution happening outside of the control node. You’ll also start seeing additional features arriving in a forthcoming release by means of a new component called automation mesh (think: a service mesh for Ansible), which will be the replacement for isolated nodes in Ansible Tower.

• Created new tools to better enable enterprise automation developers.
  Developing Ansible content has largely been up to the individual developer for building and curating content. New tools such as ansible-navigator and ansible-builder have been created to allow for a more consistent experience for content developed on a workstation that’s destined for automation controller on a server or cloud. This is made possible because of automation execution environments, which are now much more predictable, portable, and scalable compared to traditional Python virtual environments.

Ansible Automation Platform 2.0 introduces an improved architecture and a variety of new tools to scale your automation while still providing a familiar Ansible experience to your teams. We want to ensure you have all the information you need to get your automation teams up to speed on the new features and start developing your migration strategy (if applicable) to best prepare for the forthcoming formal announcements coming later this year. Over the next few months keep an eye on this space (Content from red.ht is not included.the Knowledgebase on Red Hat Customer Portal) for all the latest on documentation, installation, migration and component deep dives.

How do I get more help?

If you are interested in hearing more about Ansible Automation Platform 2.0, please reach out to your Red Hat sales representative. In the meantime, you can log into the Content from red.ht is not included.Red Hat Customer Portal for official resources around the launch, including migration considerations, getting started blogs, and official documentation which can be found at Content from red.ht is not included.Content from red.ht is not included.https://red.ht/AAP-20. (Note: a Red Hat subscription is required for access)

Still need assistance? Can’t find your Red Hat Sales representative? Contact Red Hat Technical support for additional information. Please refer to the Content from red.ht is not included.official resources that will help you on your automation journey.

As a reminder, keep an eye on the Content from red.ht is not included.Early Access Homepage for all the latest information from the Ansible Team between now and AnsibleFest 2021 in late September.

Where do I go next?

As Automation becomes more important to your business, so will be the changes you make in the way you can adopt, manage and operate automation. Ansible Automation Platform 2.0 introduces an improved architecture and flexibility to the already exemplary Ansible Tower (now automation controller with execution environments) and a variety of new tools to scale your automation while still providing a familiar experience to your teams. We want to ensure you have all the information you need to get your automation teams up to speed on the new features and start developing your migration strategy to best prepare for the forthcoming formal announcements coming later this year. Over the next few months keep an eye on this space (the Content from red.ht is not included.Knowledgebase on Red Hat Customer Portal) for all the latest on documentation, installation, migration and component deep dives.