Managing Enterprise Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Training Course

1 Installing Ansible Automation Platform

• Functions of the platform gateway, automation controller, private automation hub, and Event-Driven Ansible controller.
• Role of execution environments and automation mesh within the platform architecture.
• Deployment strategies and enterprise topologies, covering containerized, RPM-based, and OpenShift Operator approaches.
• Preparation of the installer inventory and execution of the installation process for the chosen deployment method.
• Initial platform access, subscription setup, and navigation of the unified interface.

2 Managing Users and Access Permissions

• Establishing organizations, teams, and user accounts.
• Local accounts and centralized authentication methods, including LDAP integration.
• Implementation of built-in roles, resource permissions, and permission inheritance.
• Oversight of access rights to platform resources and private automation hub content.

3 Managing Inventories and Machine Credentials

• Creation of static inventories, including hosts, groups, and associated variables.
• Setup of machine credentials using SSH keys, passwords, and privilege escalation settings.
• Understanding credential types and their application during job execution.
• Control over administrative and usage rights for inventories and credentials.
• Verification of connectivity to managed hosts via ad hoc commands.

4 Managing Projects and Launching Jobs

• Integration of projects with Git repositories and configuration of source control credentials.
• Branch selection and setup of project updates, including update-on-launch features.
• Utilization of execution environments and content provided via the private automation hub.
• Development of job templates and execution of playbooks against managed hosts.
• Analysis of job output, execution events, and activity stream logs.

5 Using Advanced Job Template Features

• Input management through extra variables, launch prompts, and surveys.
• Configuration of host limits, forks, verbosity levels, job slicing, and fact caching.
• Scheduling of automation jobs.
• Configuration of notifications for job initiation, completion, and failure events.

6 Constructing Automation Workflows

• Creation of workflow job templates using the visual workflow editor.
• Connection of jobs via success, failure, and always branches.
• Configuration of converging paths and recovery steps for failed operations.
• Inclusion of approval nodes and management of approval timeouts.
• Execution and scheduling of workflows, along with workflow notification settings.

7 Managing Advanced Inventories

• Importation of inventory content from Git-stored projects.
• Integration of dynamic inventory sources via inventory plug-ins.
• Scheduling of inventory synchronization and source refresh prior to execution.
• Creation of constructed inventories by combining sources and filtering hosts with variables and patterns.

8 Automating Platform Configuration

• Configuration as code management using platform content collections, such as ansible.controller, ansible.platform, and ansible.hub.
• Utilization of REST APIs, authentication tokens, and API calls within playbooks.
• Automation of the creation and configuration of organizations, projects, and job templates.
• Storage of configuration playbooks in Git and automation triggering via webhooks.

9 Maintaining and Troubleshooting the Platform

• Service management and log location identification based on the deployment method.
• Investigation of common platform and job execution failures.
• Use of management jobs for maintaining job history and activity stream data.
• Planning and execution of backup and restoration procedures.
• Review of upgrade considerations and subscription management.

10 Scaling Deployments with Automation Mesh

• Understanding control, execution, and hop node roles, including hybrid-node behavior where relevant to the deployment model.
• Node connection via Receptor and mesh route design for remote or segmented networks.
• Management of instance groups, container groups, and execution capacity.
• Application of high-availability principles to platform components, databases, and load balancing.
• Assessment of the impact of node or service failures on automation execution and recovery.

11 Comprehensive Platform Administration Review

• Configuration of private automation hub content according to provided specifications.
• Setup of an organization including users, teams, inventories, credentials, and Git projects.
• Creation of job templates and workflows to satisfy defined operational requirements.
• Review of access permissions, content availability, and automation execution across the configured environment.