Overview
Ansible® can manage and execute core functions in Microsoft Windows environments, from security updates to remote data management, using standard remote access protocols. This means Windows administrators can automate their systems the same way they would on Linux® without having to learn a new tool.
Ansible modules for Windows support PowerShell, the task-based command line shell and scripting language included with Windows. They also include native Windows support that uses PowerShell to manage the operating system in a way that’ll feel familiar to Windows administrators.
For enterprise automation, Red Hat® Ansible Automation Platform contains modern tools for managing and automating Microsoft Windows environments. Ansible Automation Platform can automate provisioning, application deployment, and configuration management for a multivendor environment.
What is Ansible?
Ansible is an agentless, open source IT automation engine. It simplifies tasks by using human-readable playbooks and modules to automate system provisioning, configuration, and application deployment across IT environments. With Ansible, you describe your desired state in YAML, and it automatically configures your system that way.
Ansible doesn’t require installing or running an agent on target machines or hosts. By default, Ansible uses Secure Shell (SSH), a network protocol that communicates with another system over a secure channel, to establish connections between the control node—the primary machine—and the target hosts. For Windows systems, Ansible uses WinRM or OpenSSH to access remote machines from the control node.
It’s important to distinguish between Ansible, the open source automation project, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible provides the foundational command-line automation engine while Ansible Automation Platform builds on that foundation with supported features, content, and management tools for creating, operating, and scaling automation across the enterprise.
The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure Automation Platforms, Q4 2024
Benefits of automating Windows systems with Ansible Automation Platform
Automating your Windows systems with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform can help your IT teams move from constantly troubleshooting issues to proactively managing and growing your systems with confidence.
Provisioning
Automating Windows systems provisioning supports rapid, consistent deployments and establishes a standardized foundation for your infrastructure. Standardized Ansible templates simplify scripting, so IT teams can deploy and manage Windows environments without having to be experts in every area.
Centralize system configuration at scale
Manage core system settings, deploy Windows features and services, and configure the Windows Registry centrally. These capabilities let you consistently apply configurations to thousands of systems, greatly reducing manual work and potential errors.
Standardize Windows automation
Deploy Windows environments uniformly across various settings, including on-premise, cloud, and edge locations. This eliminates configuration inconsistencies from the outset, ensuring every new system adheres to predefined standards.
Simplify Active Directory administration
Use Ansible Automation Platform to deploy, manage, and interact with Active Directory, Microsoft’s centralized identity and access service. This includes automating tasks like user, group, and organizational unit (OU) management; service account creation; and directory data collection to reduce the administrative workload for IT teams.
Streamline application deployment
Deploy and manage applications consistently across your Windows fleet, including Internet Information Services (IIS) deployment for web applications. IIS handles complex installations, making sure all required software is present and integrating with tools like Chocolatey, a Windows package manager that simplifies software installation and maintenance.
IT Operations
Ansible Automation Platform simplifies and standardizes daily IT operations on Windows, making them more reliable, efficient, and compliant.
Configure and deploy Windows features consistently
Configure services and specific features across all your Windows environments, including IIS. This helps you deploy consistent system roles at scale, centralizing service management from Ansible Automation Platform.
Automate Active Directory tasks
Simplify routine Active Directory management, such as creating users, resetting passwords, or managing computer objects. Event-Driven Ansible can further support this by automating responses or proactively gathering information based on authentication and account events.
Install and manage applications efficiently
Standardize and simplify the deployment of third-party applications and Windows Installer packages at scale. This lets you consistently and reliably install across all Windows systems, making software available and functional.
Centralize registry key management
Automate and centralize the management of Windows Registry key values across your entire infrastructure. This not only supports consistency but also enables scheduled automation tasks to enforce desired states and gather critical data from Windows servers for further automation.
Streamline Windows Update and patch management
Automate the critical process of managing Windows updates and patches. Ansible Automation Platform delivers consistency across systems, helps maintain enterprise application functionality during updates, and can orchestrate reboots on demand for precise control over the patching lifecycle. This extends to cross-platform patching where Windows is part of a larger application configuration.
Improve compliance and desired state enforcement
Configure scheduled automation tasks to continuously check for and enforce desired configurations and service states. This declarative approach, combined with multiple notification methods and integration with IT service management (ITSM) systems, reduces the need for preventative maintenance and provides ongoing compliance, so operations teams can focus on strategic system improvements.
Orchestration
Ansible Automation Platform's orchestration capabilities help coordinate complex, multistage workflows that span diverse IT components, including Windows, Linux, and network devices.
Increase efficiency and consistency
Become more efficient and consistent in managing infrastructure by orchestrating interdependent tasks across your entire IT environment. This holistic view reduces configuration drift and errors, leading to more predictable systems.
Automate holistic workflows
Consolidate multiple IT processes—such as provisioning new infrastructure, performing compliance checks, deploying applications, configuring networks, and updating ITSM systems—into a single, unified workflow. This end-to-end automation reduces manual handoffs and potential errors.
Prioritize higher-value tasks
Automate complex, cross-domain workflows to free IT teams from routine tasks, so they can focus on growing your business.
Ways to automate Windows systems
PowerShell
Ansible can run your PowerShell scripts to make managing and configuring your Windows servers more efficient.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform lets you automate Windows systems, including all .NET and Desired State Configuration (DSC) functions, without installing another scripting language.
You can also write your own modules or use Ansible Playbooks to automate your Windows systems and orchestrate tasks. Playbooks are YAML-formatted files that contain a set of configurations and tasks that achieve an end state on an Ansible Automation Platform, Windows, or Linux target host.
Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
WinRM is Microsoft’s built-in, HTTP-based remote management technology. To manage Windows hosts with Ansible, you must 1st configure WinRM so the Ansible control machine can access your Windows servers and clients. However, WinRM’s noninteractive login—where commands run without an active user session—can make it difficult to perform tasks like Windows updates or double-hop authentication, which requires access to a second remote system.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform helps overcome these challenges by letting you codify authentication, which simplifies remote management tasks. It also supports OpenSSH for accessing Windows Server.
Application installation and management
Windows doesn’t include an integrated package management system, instead using Microsoft Store for application distribution and maintenance. However, Microsoft Store can be difficult to automate because it lacks the necessary command-line tools and relies on a graphical user interface (GUI) that’s not designed for automation.
Ansible Automation Platform includes a module that automates basic package management in Windows. It also integrates with Chocolatey, which provides automated idempotent package management that repeats tasks without altering the desired system state.
Windows updates
Update management is an ongoing responsibility for IT administration teams. Windows Update delivers software updates for Windows systems, and many IT teams use Microsoft Configuration Manager to run these updates across their systems.
However, Microsoft Configuration Manager can be unreliable in performing automated updates, particularly when reboots are involved, making it more difficult to meet maintenance windows.
Ansible Automation Platform lets you perform basic, synchronous updates using Windows Update, making automated updates more reliable. It can also manage required intermediate reboots automatically, allowing a single task to install hundreds of updates.
How to set up Windows on Ansible Automation Platform
Connect Windows servers to Ansible Automation Platform and deploy applications using certified content.
Get trained in automation for Windows
This training course will teach you how to automate administration on the Windows Server operating system to support your DevOps workflow using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
You’ll use Ansible Automation Platform to write Ansible Playbooks for Windows systems that perform common system administration tasks reproducibly at scale. You’ll also learn to use the automation controller to manage and run your playbooks from a central, web-based user interface.
Why choose Red Hat for Windows automation?
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an end-to-end automation platform that helps enterprises configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate advanced workflows across environments, including Microsoft Windows. It helps organizations centralize and control their IT infrastructure with a visual dashboard, role-based access control, playbooks, and analytics to make operations more efficient.
Ansible Automation Platform's clear, task-based syntax lets you automate server configuration, management, and application deployment, so tasks get done at the right time and in the right order.
Accelerate your IT automation with AI
Discover how Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed uses generative AI to help you realize the value of mission-critical automation.
