Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure is a managed application that you can deploy from the Azure Marketplace portal to a resource group in your Azure tenant. Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure provides access to a library of Ansible content collections, and it is integrated with key Azure services, so you can start deploying, configuring, and managing infrastructure and applications quickly.

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure is installed as a managed application. Red Hat manages both the underlying Azure resources and the software running on it while that infrastructure runs in your Azure tenant.

The managed application resource group (RG) is completely separate from other RGs in your tenant. Red Hat only has access to the managed application RG, with no visibility into other tenant resources.

For information about how this works and how resources and access are isolated from the rest of your Azure resources, refer to Azure managed applications overview in the Microsoft Azure managed applications guide.

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure uses the following RGs:

When you install Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure, you choose whether the deployment is public or private. This affects how users can access the Ansible Automation Platform user interfaces.

Regardless of whether you choose a public or private deployment, you must configure network peering for outbound communication from Ansible Automation Platform to the private networks that contain resources that you want to automate against. You can configure network peering from Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure to your private Azure VNets and to on-premises or multi-cloud networks where transit routing with Azure exists.

1.3.1. Public deployment

Public deployments permit ingress to the Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure user interfaces over the public internet. Upon deployment, a domain name is issued to the Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure instance. No configuration is required to access Ansible Automation Platform. You can navigate to the domain from the public internet and log in to the user interfaces.

The following diagram outlines the application resources and architecture that are deployed into the managed application resource group on a public deployment of Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure into your Azure subscription. The IP ranges change based on the networking address range you set on deployment.

1.3.2. Private deployment

A private deployment of Ansible Automation Platform resides in an isolated Azure VNet with no access from external sources: traffic to and from the public internet and other Azure VNets and subnets is blocked.

To access the URL for the Ansible Automation Platform user interfaces, you must configure network peering.

After you have configured peering and routing, you can access Ansible Automation Platform through a VM on a connected Azure subnet, or directly if your organization has transit routing set up between Azure and your local network.

Note

No two Azure networking configurations are the same. To allow user access to your Ansible Automation Platform URL, your organization needs to work with your Azure administrators to connect the private access deployment.

The following diagram outlines the application resources and architecture that are deployed into the managed application resource group on a private deployment of Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure into your Azure subscription. The IP ranges change based on the networking address range you set on deployment.

When you deploy Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure, you must enable or disable disaster recovery in the Business Continuity tab of the form. There is no default setting for disaster recovery.

The disaster recovery feature incurs additional Azure infrastructure costs. See Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure infrastructure usage for details of the Service Shape of the Storage account.

If you want to enable disaster recovery on an existing instance of Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure, contact Red Hat customer support.

The disaster recovery feature creates a nightly backup of your managed application and stores it in a paired region that is geographically distant to your primary region. For information about regional pairings, refer to Azure cross-region replication pairings for all geographies in the Azure reliability documentation.

For information about recovering your application after a service-impacting event, see the Disaster recovery for Ansible Automation Platform on Azure article on the Red Hat customer portal.

When you install Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure, you deploy the following infrastructure into your Microsoft Azure subscription:

Exact infrastructure usage depends on the length of time that the managed application is deployed in your tenancy, and the automation requirements that might cause the Kubernetes cluster to autoscale to meet the demands of your workload.

Microsoft provides a Pricing calculator to estimate your costs for Microsoft Azure products and services. Red Hat has configured an example scenario in the pricing calculator: use the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure Infrastructure Estimate to tune Kubernetes expected auto scaling variables based on your organization’s workloads.

If Red Hat determines that a deployment’s automation might exceed the capabilities of the current tier of the deployment, then Red Hat site reliability engineers will work with you to upgrade the infrastructure tier based on automation needs.

Red Hat Ansible is responsible for the monitoring, health, and maintenance of the underlying services and Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure core systems as well as the operation of Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure itself. This includes lifecycle management of the components.

Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure default configuration of Microsoft Azure cluster autoscaler for autoscaling, with the following settings to limit the number of nodes:

Red Hat does not provide a solution to migrate existing deployments to Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure.