Ansible 102 - Storage Devices

Price
$2,395.00 USD

Duration
5 Days

Delivery Methods
Virtual Instructor Led
Private Group

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Course Overview

This course offers a flexible (customizable) overview of using Ansible to automate the suite of Dell storage products including PowerMax, Isilon/PowerScale and PowerStore. Examples highlight Ansible’s latest current release capabilities, building complex playbooks, and developing workflow strategies all while observing best-practice techniques.

Students will be encouraged to share with the class the manual ways they are currently doing work in an effort to create highly applicable Ansible solutions. Through these demonstrations, students will learn how to use code to extend structure and consistency to their specific job operations. Although this course focuses on Dell Storage solutions, Ansible is a Swiss-Army knife of abstracted automation. Every lesson is highly applicable beyond “just” the Dell storage suite.

Course Objectives

Ansible for Storage Strategies
Ansible and Dell PowerMax
Ansible and Dell Isilon / PowerScale
Ansible and Dell PowerStore
Ansible and Dell PowerFlex (VxFlex OS)
Ansible and Pure Storage
Ansible for NetApp Storage
Writing and Executing Ansible Playbooks
Developing Roles with Molecule
Installing and creating Collections for content delivery
Using Ansible to target Linux, Windows, Clouds, Network Devices and REST APIs
Ansible and AWX / Tower for Orchestration
Ansible and Jenkins for Orchestration
AI LLM prompt engineering for generating jumpstart solutions

Who Should Attend?

Storage Engineers (specifically those using Dell Storage products), System Administrators, Network Engineers, and Developers will find this course a compelling overview for using Ansible to automate their workflows.

Top-rated instructors: Our crew of subject matter experts have an average instructor rating of 4.8 out of 5 across thousands of reviews.
Authorized content: We maintain more than 35 Authorized Training Partnerships with the top players in tech, ensuring your course materials contain the most relevant and up-to date information.
Interactive classroom participation: Our virtual training includes live lectures, demonstrations and virtual labs that allow you to participate in discussions with your instructor and fellow classmates to get real-time feedback.
Post Class Resources: Review your class content, catch up on any material you may have missed or perfect your new skills with access to resources after your course is complete.
Private Group Training: Let our world-class instructors deliver exclusive training courses just for your employees. Our private group training is designed to promote your team’s shared growth and skill development.
Tailored Training Solutions: Our subject matter experts can customize the class to specifically address the unique goals of your team.

Course Prerequisites

Strong typing skills
Coding experience in another language is helpful, but not required

Agenda

Ansible Introduction

Ansible definition
Exploring modules
Building a task
Places to define Ansible vars
hosts aka \"Inventory\"
Creating a A play
Looking at the “handler”
Running a playbook
Introduction to YAML
Requirements for connecting to remote hosts

Installation

Configuration requirements on the control machine
Understanding pre-requisites for connecting to remote infrastructure
Ansible configuration with ansible.cfg
Ansible connection types
Touring the Ansible Python Plugin system

Ansible Static Inventory

Defining Hosts and Groups
Host and Group variables
Understanding variable precedence

YAML

YAML Gotchas
YAML Dictionary
YAML list
YAML list of dictionaries
YAML Alternate format
Relationship to JSON

Writing a Simple Playbook

Elements of a well written playbook
Dell Storage Collection
Using include files for tasks
Available Dell Storage modules
Creating dynamic playbooks with external variable files
How a Dell inventory may differ from static inventories

Ansible base modules to know

Understanding modules documentation
setup / gather_facts
gathering facts on Dell storage arrays
apt / yum / pip
command / shell
uri module for API lookups
git
debug for variable display
lineinfile for building configuration files
Writing Ansible Playbooks with Dell Storage Modules and Ansible Base modules

Ansible Tower / Jenkins

Running Dell Storage playbooks in Ansible Tower
Running Dell Storage playbooks in Jekins
Why you should consider using Jenkins as a replacement for Ansible Tower
Pushing and pulling playbooks from GitHub

Variables, Conditionals and Looping Tasks

Variables and Loops
Building conditionals from Dell Storage module results
Blocks
Getting variables from the system
Setting variables in playbooks
Getting variables from the command line
Where is the best source to derive variables values

Ansible and Jinja

What is Jinja2?
Jinja variables
Jinja filters
Jinja2 tests
How to use ansible templates
Building Jinja2 templates for Dell Storage

Ansible and RESTful API Requests

Passing parameters within RESTful API requests
General tips for connecting Ansible to any API
AWS S3 Bucket Storage Example

Dynamic Inventory Management

What is Dynamic Inventory?
A review of static Inventory Practices
Using JSON as an Inventory Source
Using YAML as an Inventory Source

Securing Credentials for Dell Storage

Best practices for credential management
Prompting for sensitive input
YAML shortcuts for passing credentials to Dell Storage
Securing credentials with Ansible Vault
Encrypting Playbooks with Ansible Vault

Collections, Roles and Ansible Galaxy

Why we need Ansible Roles
The problems solved by Ansible Collections
Creating Roles
Creating Collections
Role Directory Structure
Role default variables
Converting a Playbook to a Role
Exploring Ansible Galaxy
Finding code on GitHub
Augmenting Ansible with Ansible Galaxy content (Roles and Collections)

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We can enroll multiple students in an upcoming class or schedule a dedicated private training event designed to meet your organization’s needs.

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