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So friends, in this particular video, what we're going to discuss is the

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utility of

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Ansible roles. So with that said, let's just dig in. Okay, so let's discuss the

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whole idea

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behind the Ansible role. Now, consider this, when you happen to be managing

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real live environments,

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whereby you may have many tens or perhaps hundreds or maybe even thousands of

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devices,

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this can become really quite complex, even with an automation solution such as

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Ansible.

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You know, you have different servers with different requirements, different
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You know, you have different servers with different requirements, different

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configurations,

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that type of thing, very quickly, given the scale of things, this can all

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become very unmanageable,

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very, very quickly. Now, we know that we can leverage the power of automation,

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which really

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does make our life a lot easier than it would be if we had to solve these

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problems manually.

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But that doesn't change the fact that management, even with automation,

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really is quite difficult. Now, what we happen to do with automation, and in

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the case of Ansible,

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with our playbooks, is we may actually spend time writing all of these tasks to
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with our playbooks, is we may actually spend time writing all of these tasks to

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perform

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particular actions within the network, and then perhaps maybe for one

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particular device or a

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subset of devices, we would like to perform a really similar task or maybe a

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really similar

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group of tasks, but perhaps with a slight modification to the playbook. So we

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do not want to have to

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completely rewrite our entire playbook all over again. And you know, just make

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small modifications

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to that particular playbook to suit the new scenario for the new configurations

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of the new devices.

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Instead, you might be more tempted to just copy paste an existing playbook and
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Instead, you might be more tempted to just copy paste an existing playbook and

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begin making those

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slight modifications as opposed to completely rewriting it. Now, suppose you

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can do that,

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but I really would challenge you on that point. So here is the very general

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rule that I want to

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suggest to you. If you happen to find yourself copying and pasting many tasks

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from within your

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Ansible Playbooks, you should begin considering creating an Ansible role. Now,

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suppose you happen

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to have a rather complex Ansible playbook that took you a long time to write,

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but it is very
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but it is very

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effective. And more importantly, it is commonly used, okay, or at least parts

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of the playbook is

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commonly used. And this can happen for many reasons. Perhaps you may be

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happened to be in a

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collaborative environment, maybe someone else wrote a really, really good

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playbook. But what we want

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to now do is to take that playbook, make it much less specific, i.e. we

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actually want to make it

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more generic. And the whole purpose of this is so that that playbook

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effectively becomes more

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modular, as well as more portable, so that it can be just plugged into other
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modular, as well as more portable, so that it can be just plugged into other

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playbooks quite easily.

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And crucially, you have the ability to make those necessary small changes. So

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let's imagine you

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happen to have, you know, five really well written and complex Ansible tasks.

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What you could do is

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just wrap those five tasks into a single role, which as we're going to see as

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we progress throughout,

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this skill is really, really easy to call. Quite simply, this particular role

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that has the ability

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to do all of these fancy tasks is only going to take up a single line within

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your playbook. So,
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your playbook. So,

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perhaps maybe happen to have three roles in your playbook, which is ultimately

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perhaps maybe calling

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something like say 25 Ansible tasks. What we're doing here is ultimately making

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things much more

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manageable. Now, where I happen to explain the purpose of an Ansible role, one

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of the closest

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things I can liken it to is a function in a program. Now, I understand that not

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everyone watching

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this particular video is experiencing like maybe say Python programming. But

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for those of you that

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do have a little bit experience with Python, really try to conceptualize the
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do have a little bit experience with Python, really try to conceptualize the

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Ansible role,

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kind of in the same way you would a Python function. This gives you a nice

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piece of reusable code

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that you can easily share. It doesn't even have to be authored by you the same

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way an Ansible role

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doesn't have to be authored by you. It can be authored by a teammate or perhaps

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even a community

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member that you don't even know personally. But ultimately, this role, or in

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the case of Python,

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this function can easily be imported into the logic of your code or in the term

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of Ansible

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into the logic of your Ansible playbook. Once again, it's all about making
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into the logic of your Ansible playbook. Once again, it's all about making

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things easier,

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more reusable and much more portable. Now, as we're going to learn, you can

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actually create

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your own Ansible role yourself. Now, in order to actually do this, what we're

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going to have to do

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is to follow a very particular directory structure. That means we're going to

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have very particular

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followers for very particular use cases, holding very particular playbooks and

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files. We will talk

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about that very, very shortly, but understand we absolutely do not have to

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create their own

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role ourselves. In fact, very often, people never really write their own roles.
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role ourselves. In fact, very often, people never really write their own roles.

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Very often,

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they just use the roles created by much more experienced users in the Ansible

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ecosystem.

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And one of the best places to get these type of roles is from a marketplace

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known as Ansible

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Galaxy. This too is something that we're going to be checking out within this

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particular scale.

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But before we get to Ansible Galaxy, the very first thing that I want to talk

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to you about

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is how we can go about creating our own customized and personal roles. But like

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you say, in order to

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do that, the very first thing that we have to understand is that very specific
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do that, the very first thing that we have to understand is that very specific

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Ansible directory

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structure and well that's what we're going to be talking about in the very next

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video.