Ansible is an open-source IT automation tool. Ansible was written by Michael DeHaan and acquired by Red Hat in 2015 . Ansible supports cross platform , supports all major OS,Physical ,virtual,cloud and network. Ansible bundled with 1000+ modules in built , which will make task easier to run client nodes.
Ansible major features are :
1.Configuration Management
2.Software provisioning
3. Application deployment
4.Multi-tier orchestration
Ansible is agentless , this is one of biggest advantage of ansible when compare with equivalent product like saltstack,chef,puppet. Ansible controller node will connect with Linux client nodes through open ssh and remote windows nodes will connect through powershell/WinRm
Python is pre-requirement on Linux nodes. The difficulties with agent based systems are you have to keep upgrade or manage the agent versions.So the DeHaan preferred agentless tool
The core component of ansible is playbook. Playbook use YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) language which is easy to learn, human readable and use.This is one of the reason Ansible become most popular.
Redhat offers Ansible engine and Ansible tower . Ansible tower has more features to manage environments efficiently , and Redhat provides enterprise support .