Hi,
I am new to Ansible. I am not sure what is agent less in Ansible and how is it advantageous over agent based? I also read the whitepaper https://www.ansible.com/benefits-of-agentless-architecture and still have not completely understood. Any explanation with examples will be highly appreciable.
Thanks and Regards,
Kaushal
The name implies most of it… No agent needed… as opposed to some other tools like puppet which need a locally installed agent on every system.
In practice, ansible just uses ssh/python/shell, and not a custom agent/client.
Mark
Mark has it right...
To my mind the biggest advantages of agentless over agent are...
1) bootstrapping, with puppet you have to install the agent before you can control the machine, with Ansible you just control it.
2) It uses the same mechanisms for access I would (ssh and sudo) so I don't need to worry about additional security issues (how secure is that agent?)
3) No overhead. If I am not running a task there is no extra process using resources, with an agent, even if it only uses a fraction of a percent of cpu it is still there.
Adam
Orchestration in Ansible is so simple compared to agent-based CM
systems; when the play
has gathered facts it has up to date information about all nodes to
hand. Chef and Puppet
need a fair bit of extra infrastructure and configuration to deliver that.
One other one that I'm finding a big win for some clients - a
constantly running agent can be a
challenge in many workplaces if strict change windows etc. are in
place. Puppet nodes could
be prone to getting 'stuck' and recover at unexpected times (just
after a reboot for example)
and trigger service restarts etc.
With an 'operator driven' tool like Ansible you know when you're about
to make a change, you
can track each scheduled piece of work to a play, to a commit, and
roll it through environments
just as you would code.
None of those issues are insurmountable with other tools but they're
an extra headache.
Hello,
This is a bit old now (Dec '14) but still pertinent. A demo I gave to the DOXLON meetup…
–Mark