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AWS OpsWorks vs Ansible vs Chef: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this article, we will discuss the key differences between AWS OpsWorks, Ansible, and Chef. These are all popular tools used for configuration management and automation in IT infrastructure. Each tool has its own unique features and advantages that make it suitable for different use cases.
Hosted vs. Self-hosted: AWS OpsWorks is a hosted service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Ansible and Chef are self-hosted tools. With OpsWorks, you can quickly deploy and manage applications on AWS without having to worry about infrastructure setup. On the other hand, Ansible and Chef require you to provision and manage your own infrastructure.
Infrastructure as Code: Ansible and Chef are both infrastructure-as-code tools, meaning they allow you to define and manage your infrastructure using code or configuration files. This enables you to version-control your infrastructure and apply changes consistently across different environments. OpsWorks, although it has some configuration management capabilities, is more focused on providing a managed deployment and management platform.
Agent vs. Agentless: Ansible is an agentless tool, which means it does not require any software to be installed on the managed nodes. It uses SSH to remotely execute commands on the target machines. Chef, on the other hand, requires an agent called the "Chef client" to be installed on the managed nodes. This allows for more advanced features like real-time monitoring and reporting. OpsWorks also uses an agent, but it is managed by AWS and automatically installed on the instances.
Ease of Use: Ansible is known for its simplicity and ease of use. It has a low learning curve and uses plain English-like syntax (YAML) for defining tasks and configurations. Chef, on the other hand, has a steeper learning curve and uses a more complex Ruby-based DSL. OpsWorks provides a user-friendly web interface for managing applications and instances, making it easier to get started for those new to infrastructure automation.
Community and Ecosystem: Ansible has a large and active community, with a wide range of community-contributed modules and playbooks available for various use cases. Chef also has a strong and active community, with a large number of cookbooks and resources available. However, as OpsWorks is a proprietary service, its community and ecosystem are not as extensive as Ansible and Chef.
Integration with Cloud Providers: AWS OpsWorks is tightly integrated with the Amazon Web Services ecosystem, making it easy to deploy and manage applications on AWS. It supports features like seamless integration with Amazon EC2 instances, automatic scaling, and integration with other AWS services like Elastic Load Balancer and CloudWatch. Ansible and Chef, on the other hand, are more agnostic and can be used to manage infrastructure on any cloud provider or even on-premises servers.
In summary, AWS OpsWorks is a hosted service that provides a managed platform for deploying and managing applications on AWS. Ansible and Chef are self-hosted tools that offer more flexibility in terms of infrastructure management and support a wider range of cloud providers. Choosing the right tool depends on the specific requirements of your organization and the level of control you want over your infrastructure.
We have a lot of operations running using Rundeck (including deployments) and we also have various roles created in Ansible for infrastructure creation, which we execute using Rundeck. Rundeck we are using a community edition. Since we are already using Rundeck for executing the Ansible role, need an advice. What difference will it make if we replace Rundeck with Ansible Tower? Advantages and Disadvantages? We are using Jenkins to call Rundeck Job, same will be used for Ansible Tower if we replace Rundeck.
I never use Tower, but I can recommend Ansible Semaphore as alternative to Rundeck. It is lightweight, easy to use and tailored for work with Ansible.
Personal Dotfiles management
Given that they are all “configuration management” tools - meaning they are designed to deploy, configure and manage servers - what would be the simplest - and yet robust - solution to manage personal dotfiles - for n00bs.
Ideally, I reckon, it should:
- be containerized (Docker?)
- be versionable (Git)
- ensure idempotency
- allow full automation (tests, CI/CD, etc.)
- be fully recoverable (Linux/ macOS)
- be easier to setup/manage (as much as possible)
Does it make sense?
I recommend whatever you are most comfortable with/whatever might already be installed in the system. Note that, for personal dotfiles, it does not need to be containerized or have full automation/testing. It just needs to handle multiple OS and platform and be idempotent. Git will handle the heavy lifting. Note that you'll have to separate out certain files like the private SSH keys and write your CM so that it will pull it from another store or assist in manually importing them.
I personally use Ansible since it is a serverless design and is in Python, which I prefer to Ruby. Saltstack was too new when I started to port my dotfile management scripts from shell into a configuration management tool. I think any of the above is fine.
You should check out SaltStack. It's a lot more powerful than Puppet, Chef, & Ansible. If not Salt, then I would go Ansible. But stay away from Puppet & Chef. 10+ year user of Puppet, and 2+ year user of Chef.
Chef is a definite no-go for me. I learned it the hard way (ie. got a few tasks in a prod system) and it took quite a lot to grasp it on an acceptable level. Ansible in turn is much more straightforward and much easier to test.
I'm just getting started using Vagrant to help automate setting up local VMs to set up a Kubernetes cluster (development and experimentation only). (Yes, I do know about minikube)
I'm looking for a tool to help install software packages, setup users, etc..., on these VMs. I'm also fairly new to Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. What's a good one to start with to learn? I might decide to try all 3 at some point for my own curiosity.
The most important factors for me are simplicity, ease of use, shortest learning curve.
I have been working with Puppet and Ansible. The reason why I prefer ansible is the distribution of it. Ansible is more lightweight and therefore more popular. This leads to situations, where you can get fully packaged applications for ansible (e.g. confluent) supported by the vendor, but only incomplete packages for Puppet.
The only advantage I would see with Puppet if someone wants to use Foreman. This is still better supported with Puppet.
If you are just starting out, might as well learn Kubernetes There's a lot of tools that come with Kube that make it easier to use and most importantly: you become cloud-agnostic. We use Ansible because it's a lot simpler than Chef or Puppet and if you use Docker Compose for your deployments you can re-use them with Kubernetes later when you migrate
Pros of Ansible
- Agentless284
- Great configuration210
- Simple199
- Powerful176
- Easy to learn155
- Flexible69
- Doesn't get in the way of getting s--- done55
- Makes sense35
- Super efficient and flexible30
- Powerful27
- Dynamic Inventory11
- Backed by Red Hat9
- Works with AWS7
- Cloud Oriented6
- Easy to maintain6
- Vagrant provisioner4
- Simple and powerful4
- Multi language4
- Simple4
- Because SSH4
- Procedural or declarative, or both4
- Easy4
- Consistency3
- Well-documented2
- Masterless2
- Debugging is simple2
- Merge hash to get final configuration similar to hiera2
- Fast as hell2
- Manage any OS1
- Work on windows, but difficult to manage1
- Certified Content1
Pros of AWS OpsWorks
- Devops32
- Cloud management19
Pros of Chef
- Dynamic and idempotent server configuration110
- Reusable components76
- Integration testing with Vagrant47
- Repeatable43
- Mock testing with Chefspec30
- Ruby14
- Can package cookbooks to guarantee repeatability8
- Works with AWS7
- Has marketplace where you get readymade cookbooks3
- Matured product with good community support3
- Less declarative more procedural2
- Open source configuration mgmt made easy(ish)2
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Cons of Ansible
- Dangerous8
- Hard to install5
- Doesn't Run on Windows3
- Bloated3
- Backward compatibility3
- No immutable infrastructure2
Cons of AWS OpsWorks
Cons of Chef
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