When I started my career in IT over 25 years ago, automation wasn't a popular concept. However, sysadmins would still automate parts of their jobs to increase their efficiency and effectiveness in managing their IT environments. At the time, writing scripts was the common way to address repetitive tasks, allowing admins to focus on other issues.
While scripts can get you a long way, Ansible is a versatile solution that makes automation even easier and more robust. Ansible abstracts the boring part of writing scripts away so that you can focus on your business needs instead of writing code to handle exceptions and special cases.
Looking at the top 10 Ansible articles from 2021, I see a common theme. Most of these articles are introductory, which means that IT professionals in general, and sysadmins in particular, are looking to learn Ansible and start automating their environment.
If this describes you, or if you've already started automating and are looking to improve your skills, this list contains some valuable information. Make sure to take a look at it.
Happy new year and happy automating!
