Ansible and Azure Arc-enabled servers are better together.

It’s not a question of Ansible or Azure Arc. Customers are leveraging Ansible and Azure Arc-enabled servers in tandem as they blend Ansible automation and governance with Azure security and monitoring. From onboarding to Azure Arc using Ansible playbooks to managing Arc-enabled servers using Ansible Automation platform to delivering key Arc scenarios using Ansible, Azure Arc meets Ansible users in their tool of choice. Layering Ansible with Azure Arc, IT admins can extend Azure’s observability and cybersecurity capabilities from cloud to edge.

Onboard machines to Azure Arc-enabled servers at scale using Ansible Playbooks.

Using Ansible playbooks, customers have another customizable and scalable approach to onboard their non-Azure machines to Azure Arc-enabled servers. This method leverages a service principal. A service principal is a limited management identity that has only the minimum permission necessary to connect machines to Azure Arc. This reduces the need to interactively provide credentials for each machine onboarded to Azure Arc and is safer than using a more privileged account.

After supplying information about the Arc-enabled server, including its subscription, resource group, region, and tags in Azure portal, you will be provided with an Ansible playbook for at scale onboarding. These playbooks are specific to Windows or Linux and to the selected connectivity mode (public, proxy, and private link). Similar automation is available for onboarding using a service principal with both Configuration Manager and Group Policy.

Extend the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure to Arc-enabled infrastructure.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure is a managed application that you can deploy from the Azure Marketplace portal. Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure provides access to a library of Ansible content collections, and it is integrated with key Azure services. The Ansible Automation Platform includes Automation Controller, Automation Hub, Ansible Content Collections, and an Automation Execution Environment.

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure not only supports Azure native resources, but also resources on-premises or in other cloud environments. This is because the Ansible Automation Platform supports Arc-enabled infrastructure like Arc-enabled servers or Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. With Ansible Automation, you can start deploying, configuring, and managing infrastructure consistently and robustly from the Azure management plane.

Use Ansible for key scenarios like configuration of monitoring with Azure Arc-enabled servers.

The Ansible Automation Platform can be used for core scenarios like deployment of extensions to Arc-enabled servers or assigning Azure Automanage configuration profiles to Arc-enabled servers. For example, you can readily use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to migrate non-Azure machines from the Azure Log Analytics agent to Azure Monitor agent, including onboarding them to Azure Arc. Content from the Ansible Content Lab for Cloud Automation has already been developed to automate this scenario and can be readily leveraged for the migration.

From onboarding to management to monitoring, administrators can couple Azure Arc with Ansible to extend the best of Azure management and Ansible automation from cloud to edge. To get started with these scenarios, check out the following resources:

• Connect machines at scale using Ansible Playbooks - Azure Arc
• How to migrate to Azure Monitor Agent using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform - Azure Arc
• Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure Guide