Automation Platform
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Integrations Extend your use of Ansible Automation Platform with partner offerings, including certified collections and resources.
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Understanding Ansible, AWX, and Ansible Automation Platform
How to make the best choice for your organization
When considering whether to use free, unsupported community Ansible® or the subscription-based, supported enterprise product, Red Hat® Ansible Automation Platform, it’s important to know the differences between the solutions—and the benefits each offers. These options should be considered in a larger context: can your company’s needs be met by free, do-it-yourself (DIY) automation—and can you afford the associated risks? Or will you benefit more from using a comprehensive enterprise automation platform?
DIY (or free) automation
The use of scripts, Ansible Core, open source projects—like AWX—or paid tools to perform specific tasks.
These point-in-time solutions can be quick to apply but are often limited to individual teams. Without organizational strategy or support, DIY automation can be costly to maintain and make it hard to create workflows that span multiple teams or domains.
Many organizations start their automation journey with unsupported community Ansible to solve a specific problem in one area of their business. However, as needs evolve and the organization matures, they often require a supported enterprise solution and move to Ansible Automation Platform.
Enterprise automation
The use of a paid, centralized platform to efficiently perform IT processes across an entire organization.
Backed by technical support, an enterprise automation platform can build existing technologies into automated workflows—and enable a scalable, unified strategy for companies that:
- Require enhanced security to meet compliance requirements and government regulations.
- Are expanding automation to more people, teams, and use cases.
- Need flexibility to adapt to changing business requirements—with the reliability of proven solutions.
- Want to focus on innovation instead of managing automation.
Defining community (or free) Ansible, AWX, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Free, unsupported open source command line tool for automation.
Free, unsupported open source software. A GUI and API tool for wrapping around community Ansible.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Subscription enterprise product. Combines 20+ community projects into a fully supported automation platform for your enterprise.
Ansible Tower is now called automation controller and is a component of Ansible Automation Platform.
Which Ansible option is right for my organization?
Community command-line Ansible can be appropriate for individuals who need automation for individual workloads—or who want to run automation for home labs. For groups who want to collaborate on automation efforts, AWX or Ansible Automation Platform offer additional options.
It can be risky for enterprises to use AWX to manage production systems as it is an unsupported, upstream open source project. AWX does not include service-level agreement (SLA) guarantees on security vulnerabilities, independent software vendor (ISV) compatibility, or supported upgrade migrations between versions. AWX is free, but hidden costs can result from security breaches and time-consuming fixes. However, AWX can be useful for developers with small labs, working on contributions to the upstream code, or as a sandbox to become comfortable with automation controller before moving to Ansible Automation Platform.
When teams want to scale automation objectives at an organizational level, Ansible Automation Platform is a better choice given its support for developer tools; flexible deployment options across multiple datacenters, clouds, and edge locations; and guaranteed SLA support for compatibility, upgrades, and security vulnerabilities. You can also scale automation spend more efficiently and transparently with an enterprise product. Ansible Automation Platform provides a more comprehensive solution for larger organizations with more complex automation needs.
What’s the difference between Ansible and Ansible Automation Platform?
When your business needs these capabilities, it’s time to consider Ansible Automation Platform.
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Community Ansible and AWX |
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform |
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Security |
Not available |
Trusted chain-of-custody for certified and private content. Security hardened with support, performance testing, bug fixes, and other standardized practices—for a more consistent and less vulnerable enterprise environment. |
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Certified content and partner ecosystem |
Not available |
140+ certified content collections across 60+ partners. Benefit from pre-built, fully supported, and certified automation content from Red Hat and our partners. |
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Life cycle support |
Not available |
At least 18 months of enterprise support per release. Critical bugfix and security vulnerability backporting for all components. |
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Legal protections |
No protections |
Intellectual property protections via the Open Source Assurance Agreement. |
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Analytics |
Not available |
Automation analytics and Red Hat Insights for Ansible Automation Platform offer in-depth analytics and reporting for planning and tracking performance and adoption. |
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Web interface |
Not available |
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Role management |
Not available |
Gives users the ability to manage access with role-based access control. |
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ISV compatibility |
Unsupported |
Supported. |
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Upgrades and migrations |
Unupported |
Supported migration to major releases as well as upgrades to minor releases. |
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Training and consulting |
Not available |
Expert resources to help you build and run a successful automation practice, backed by robust training offerings and support. Hands-on migration assistance from AWX to Ansible Automation Platform is also available. |
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Developer tools |
Unsupported |
Ansible development tools are an integrated and supported suite of capabilities that are part of every Ansible Automation Platform subscription. They help IT practitioners at any skill level accurately create automation content faster than with manual coding—building, testing, and deploying modules and playbooks without requiring hard coding skills. |
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Cloud deployment options |
Not available |
Managed and self-managed applications available to deploy on your cloud of choice, including Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Counts toward committed spend agreements. Supported by Red Hat with integrated billing. View deployment options and pricing information. |
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Event-Driven Ansible |
Separate upstream project that requires manual integration into your environment |
Event-Driven Ansible is an integrated and tested product component of Ansible Automation Platform that reduces manual tasks, delivers more efficient IT operations, and frees your teams to focus on innovation. |
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Private automation hub |
Separate upstream project that requires manual integration into your environment |
Private automation hub is an integrated and tested product component of Ansible Automation Platform. |
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Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed with IBM watsonx Code Assistant |
Integrated generative AI tooling |
Ansible Lightspeed with watsonx Code Assistant is a generative AI service that produces code recommendations built on Ansible best practices. It is included with an Ansible Automation Platform subscription, but requires purchase of IBM watsonx Code Assistant to activate all features. |
What should I consider when choosing an IT automation solution?
What is your team’s main area of focus: automation initiatives or automation infrastructure?
Organizations often try to do more work with the same number of people. Automation is a way to solve this challenge. However, if you’re simultaneously trying to stand-up, test, and manage community infrastructure, your automation objectives may falter. When deciding between community Ansible and Ansible Automation Platform, start by evaluating your team’s ability to effectively manage disparate community tools—and their desire to contribute to and understand open source development models.
In addition, Ansible Automation Platform includes Event-Driven Ansible, which reduces manual efforts by connecting sources of events with corresponding actions via rules. You design rulebooks and Event-Driven Ansible recognizes the specified event, matches it with the appropriate action, and automatically executes it. It helps your teams stay focused on high-value work.
Does your team actively contribute to the Ansible project and understand how to incorporate changes upstream?
If your team wants to get involved with the community and shape the Ansible project or share ideas, visit www.redhat.com/ansible-collaborative. You can learn more about becoming a contributor and explore the different personas that make up the vibrant Ansible community. Your input is what helps the community grow, and it is directly incorporated into the product.
Some people use Ansible Automation Platform and also contribute to community projects. They benefit from a fully supported platform while also staying current on the upstream projects.
Does your team consist of developers or IT operators? What is their expertise?
Determining your team’s area of focus is key to choosing the right automation tool—and adopting the tool successfully.
Are you focusing on multi-datacenter automation infrastructure (servers, applications, and network and security infrastructure), managing a cloud platform (public, private, and hybrid clouds), or creating complex automation objectives (such as automating IT operations, tiered deployments, and edge environments)? If yes, Ansible Automation Platform is the best choice for your organization.
Does your team have skills in programming Python and Go, understand development methods for Swagger/OpenAPI, and know how to perform GitHub pull requests? If yes, then you could use and contribute to Ansible’s many community projects, such as AWX.
And your team might want to use the platform while also contributing to community projects. Community contributions are included in product updates, and your continued contributions to upstream will impact your experience with the platform.
How do you test patching and upgrades so you don’t impact daily operations?
When considering automation solutions, most customers seek out a platform that will allow for in-place upgrades and the ability to test releases without affecting functionality.
Ansible Automation Platform provides these capabilities and more by including guaranteed upgrades, migration paths, and environments for isolated testing. In contrast, AWX users are responsible for upgrades and maintenance of AWX infrastructure.
Are you retaining the talent needed to execute your automation strategy? And are you prepared if key experts leave your company?
Many organizations using AWX have a limited number of employees—sometimes just a single person—with the skills to manage the software. If this institutional knowledge leaves your organization, it can put your business operations at risk.
With an enterprise solution, you gain support—reducing the risk of all of your automation knowledge being tied to a small team or individual. You also gain the possibility for career growth for your team. Training opportunities help employees boost their skills and gain certifications, furthering their development and career potential. For managers, this incentive can help retain top talent.
Customer success story
Learn about Ulta Beauty's journey with Ansible Automation Platform—and why they switched to the supported enterprise product.
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Using multiple tools and projects? Consider the benefits of a unified automation platform.
Relying on numerous tools across your organization can make it difficult to scale automation. A unified platform lets you build your tools into comprehensive workflows, so that you can perform complex processes across teams and domains. Based on insights from over 900 IT leaders, this 451 Research report investigates the rising necessity of unified automation platforms to efficient IT operations—and AI success.
Economic benefits of Ansible Automation Platform vs. DIY automation
Faster time-to-automation capabilities, reduced operational complexity, and lower organizational risk than with do-it-yourself (DIY) automation.
81% faster time to initial automation capabilities
30% more automation managed by 44% fewer resources
2.1x more saving
US$20M in additional savings and benefits
702% 5-year ROI
The proven value of Ansible Automation Platform
Ansible Automation Platform is trusted by more than 3,000 global customers across every industry to create, manage, and scale IT automation. It's a comprehensive, integrated solution that delivers open source innovation, hardened for your enterprise–so you can boost productivity and reduce time-to-completion for new projects.
