Understanding the foundational elements of Ansible is key to leveraging its full power for automation. While the term Ansible often broadly refers to the open-source automation tool, it’s important to differentiate between its core components and historical distributions. Primarily, we look at Ansible Core and what was known as Ansible Engine.
Ansible Core represents the heart of the project. It is the upstream, open-source community project maintained by the community and sponsored by Red Hat. Ansible Core is essentially the command-line tool that provides the fundamental automation engine. It includes the parser for playbooks, the execution engine, and the core set of modules that are tightly integrated and maintained within the main repository. If you install Ansible using pip or your system’s package manager (often named ansible-core), you are typically getting this foundational component. It’s the bedrock upon which more complex automation solutions are built.
Historically, Ansible Engine was a specific distribution of Ansible Core, primarily offered by Red Hat. Think of it as a packaged version of Ansible Core along with additional components and collections (sets of modules, plugins, and roles) that were curated and often supported by Red Hat. Ansible Engine aimed to provide a more stable, tested, and commercially supported offering based on the open-source core. It often included modules and features specifically relevant to enterprise environments and Red Hat products. The key differentiator here was the support model and the specific packaging of Core with a defined set of collections.
The main differences boiled down to:
- Origin and Maintenance: Ansible Core is the open-source community project. Ansible Engine was a specific vendor distribution derived from Core.
- Packaging and Content: Core is primarily the engine and fundamental modules. Engine packaged Core with a curated, supported set of collections.
- Support: Ansible Core relies on community support. Ansible Engine came with commercial support from Red Hat.
- Focus: Core is the universal foundation. Engine was geared towards enterprise users needing a supported and integrated solution.
It’s important to note that Ansible Engine as a standalone product has been discontinued. The focus has shifted towards Ansible Core as the open-source base and Red Hat’s flagship offering, Ansible Automation Platform, which includes Ansible Core along with other crucial components like automation controllers, content collections, and analytics, providing a comprehensive enterprise automation solution.
In essence, Ansible Core is the vital open-source engine driving the automation, while Ansible Engine represented a past, specific distribution layered on top of that core for enterprise users seeking vendor support and curated content. Today, understanding Ansible Core and its role within modern Ansible offerings like Ansible Automation Platform is the most relevant distinction for users.
Source: https://infotechys.com/ansible-core-and-red-hat-ansible-engine/
