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Ansible vs Docker: What are the differences?
- Deployment Methodology: Ansible is a configuration management tool that automates provisioning, configuration, and orchestration of servers, while Docker is a containerization platform that packages applications and their dependencies into a standardized unit for software development. The key difference here is that Ansible focuses on configuring and managing infrastructure, while Docker focuses on isolating applications within containers.
- Resource Utilization: Ansible communicates with hosts over SSH and executes tasks sequentially, which can lead to resource-heavy operations if managing a large number of servers. On the other hand, Docker uses lightweight containers that share the host OS kernel, leading to efficient resource utilization and scalability.
- State Management: Ansible follows a declarative approach where the desired state of the system is defined, and Ansible ensures the system matches that state. Docker, however, is more of an imperative system where commands are given to carry out specific tasks in containers.
- Portability: Docker containers are highly portable and can run on any system with Docker installed, providing consistency across different environments. Ansible playbooks are specific to the Ansible infrastructure and may require adjustments when deploying across diverse systems.
- Networking: Docker provides networking features built into the platform, allowing containers to communicate with each other and the outside world. While Ansible can manage network configurations on servers, it does not have the built-in networking capabilities that Docker offers.
- Focus Area: Ansible primarily focuses on automating repetitive tasks for system administrators and IT professionals, making infrastructure management more efficient. Docker, on the other hand, is geared towards developers and DevOps teams, streamlining the development, testing, and deployment of applications in a consistent environment.
In Summary, the key differences between Ansible and Docker lie in their deployment methodology, resource utilization, state management, portability, networking capabilities, and focus area.
I am looking for an easy to use platform or VPS hosting service that will allow me to deploy additional VPS at will and quickly install the OS as well.
I am also looking for a backend software that allows team messaging (chat service, video, and audio) that can be self-hosted and is free. Also, an easy to use webRTC library would be great too!
I would recommend DigitalOcean for quick VPS creation. But it worth to consider Kubernetes or at least Docker. Once I did a project with DigitalOcean. They were guarantee kind of 90 seconds for creation of new VPS from a predefined template. But if you will decide to use Kubernetes (you can use DigitalOcean for that too, or other clouds, like Google, Azure, Amazon) - the deployment would be even much quicker than 90 seconds.
I would suggest using Terraform to maintain your infrastructure as code. You can easily manage the underlying Virtual machines with the help of Terraform. I would also suggest to leverage the benefits of cloud computing by using something like AWS EC2 for as your VPS. I will also suggest RocketChat for your team communication. You can simply set this up using Docker. I am attaching the link on how to set-up Rocketchat with the help of Docker.
Do you referred about hosting or about tool/software to use in it ? About soft managing vps/dedicated server ... I tried manual lamp installation, cyperpanel, cpanel, plesk, webmin, etc.
Now, in my opinion, plesk offers the best solution.
I installed on Arsys web hosting (cloud vps) as free, and I pay official plesk support ($10/month). I could create domains, different accounts, etc.
I do that via cli (command line , bash commands), but you could do via web .
If you have any doubt askme ;)
Use Amazon EC2 for your infrastructure (including the OS, Networking, Storage, Compute, etc.). Create an AWS account for free here.
Use Ansible to configure your Operating Systems, deploy software, and manage the configurations on your servers in AWS. Puppet and Chef are other options too, but those require an agent run on your servers. Ansible just requires an SSH connection to your servers and you push out playbook runs across your servers whenever you need. It's idempotent so it only pushes changes that it determines are new to the remote systems.
I think Slack has a free version you can use if you want. That's what I've always used for Business chat.
Use Docker for you applications. You never have to manage dependencies on your servers when you deploy your applications using docker containers. You might have to manage things like versions of python and other OS centric software libraries, but nothing that would be a specific dependency for your applications. Everything is built into the container.
you can achive all that using AWS EC2 instances (virtual machines) For chat and messaging We use mattermost (which you can install even with docker AWS fargate)
Hello
I would recommend rocketchat for team messaging, video, files sharing etc.... It's awesome and self hosted.
We've been using it for 5 years and no worries
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
lxd/lxc and Docker aren't congruent so this comparison needs a more detailed look; but in short I can say: the lxd-integrated administration of storage including zfs with its snapshot capabilities as well as the system container (multi-process) approach of lxc vs. the limited single-process container approach of Docker is the main reason I chose lxd over Docker.
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 Docker
- Rapid integration and build up823
- Isolation692
- Open source521
- Testability and reproducibility505
- Lightweight460
- Standardization218
- Scalable185
- Upgrading / downgrading / application versions106
- Security88
- Private paas environments85
- Portability34
- Limit resource usage26
- Game changer17
- I love the way docker has changed virtualization16
- Fast14
- Concurrency12
- Docker's Compose tools8
- Fast and Portable6
- Easy setup6
- Because its fun5
- Makes shipping to production very simple4
- It's dope3
- Highly useful3
- Does a nice job hogging memory2
- Open source and highly configurable2
- Simplicity, isolation, resource effective2
- MacOS support FAKE2
- Its cool2
- Docker hub for the FTW2
- HIgh Throughput2
- Very easy to setup integrate and build2
- Package the environment with the application2
- Super2
- Asdfd0
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Cons of Ansible
- Dangerous8
- Hard to install5
- Doesn't Run on Windows3
- Bloated3
- Backward compatibility3
- No immutable infrastructure2
Cons of Docker
- New versions == broken features8
- Unreliable networking6
- Documentation not always in sync6
- Moves quickly4
- Not Secure3