Virtual servers in a containerised World: Ansible automation is your best ally.
There’s talk about virtual machines (VMs) being outdated, a relic of the past, replaced entirely by containerisation.
But let’s face it— VMs or virtual servers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Every organisation has at least one legacy application lurking in the background—monolithic, unwieldy, and far too risky (or headache-inducing) to containerise. For those apps and more, VMs are here to stay.
The Hybrid Reality: VMs, Containers, and the Push for Automation
You’re likely juggling VMs, containers, and the ever-growing demand to automate everything. It’s the same for us. Plus, our world has a wide variety of clients, with differing requirements and different virtualisation platforms. There’s one universal truth though – manual VM creation is inefficient and unsustainable. Automation is the way forward. Here at WM Promus, depending on the client, we leverage both community Ansible and Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) to simplify the management of VMs on platforms e.g. VMware vSphere and Red Hat Virtualisation (now a part of OpenShift).
How AAP Simplifies Virtual Machine Management
With AAP, we automate every stage of the VM lifecycle, from creation to resource allocation, network configuration, software installation, and power management. Ansible playbooks can deploy VMs directly from ISO images or—better yet—from templates, which drastically speeds up deployment. If you don’t have templates ready, you can create them from existing VMs or a barebones installation. You can use AAP to automate the configuration – apply network settings, install required software, and fine-tune system resources automatically. Not only that, but you also turn to it for security hardening e.g. enforcing best practices like disabling unnecessary services, enabling encryption, and applying strong password policies.
The bottom line
Virtual servers aren’t disappearing, and neither is the need to manage them efficiently. Whether you’re working with VMs, containers, or both, Ansible Automation Platform ensures that your IT environment runs securely, efficiently, and at scale. So, are you ready to transform how you manage your VMs? Contact us today.
Eileen O’Mahony
General Manager, WM Promus