Since we announced our integration with the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, the response from IT teams has been remarkable. Organizations are now automating infrastructure tasks that once took hours and completing them in minutes. Today, I'm excited to share how we're building on that momentum with a new Cisco Validated Design (CVD) and a major expansion of the Ansible-certified content collection for Cisco Intersight-bringing even more automation power to your teams.

Simplifying operations: How Cisco and Red Hat Ansible Collections enable automation

Cisco and Red Hat's collaboration continues to strengthen, merging Cisco's expertise in infrastructure with the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to simplify operations. We deliver and utilize this automation through CVDs and Certified Ansible Collections. These CVDs offer tested, standardized, and repeatable architectures that expedite deployment and mitigate risks.

The latest Cisco Intersight Ansible Collection provides a comprehensive set of roles designed to automate day-2 operations (ongoing management, maintenance, and optimization tasks), encompassing tasks like firmware upgrades, port configuration management, infrastructure expansion, and network automation. However, this is merely the beginning of a foundation that we are continuously building upon.

Ansible Collections provide a standardized method for packaging and distributing Ansible content such as modules, plugins, roles, and playbooks. These are seamlessly integrated into the Red Hat ecosystem, including the Ansible Automation Platform and other platforms capable of orchestrating Ansible automation.

Facing challenges with inconsistent configurations, security vulnerabilities, or slow resource provisioning? Our co-developed solution empowers customers to:

• Ensure continuous compliance and configuration enforcement.
• Enhance security posture through automated patching and vulnerability remediation.
• Dynamically scale resources by automating the provisioning of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) chassis and servers.
• Simplify operations by reducing manual efforts in system maintenance and performance optimization.

These capabilities collectively enhance operational efficiency, security, and scalability for modern data center environments.

Cisco Intersight Ansible modules expand 10-fold to 100+

Since our last update, the Cisco Intersight Ansible collection has grown dramatically, expanding from 10 modules to over 100! This impressive growth reflects each company's commitment to providing customers with a robust, scalable automation foundation that supports a wide range of use cases-from initial deployment to ongoing management and optimization.

The expanded collection empowers IT teams to automate complex workflows with confidence, leveraging infrastructure as code (IaC) principles to improve consistency, traceability, and agility. By automating day-0, day-1, and day-2 operations, organizations can reduce manual errors, accelerate deployment cycles, and maintain a strong security posture.

What's next: Cisco and Red Hat Ansible roadmap

As we continue to innovate, our partnership with Red Hat will focus on delivering additional Ansible-certified content targeting new use cases and CVDs for Red Hat OpenShift, Cisco AI PODs, and Cisco Converged Infrastructure solutions.

Ready to transform your infrastructure management?

Experience firsthand how automation can transform your infrastructure management. We invite you to:

• Read about our new Cisco Validated Design: "Enhancing Day 2 Operations with Cisco Compute and the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform"
• Explore the new Cisco Intersight Ansible Collection.

Explore the new Cisco Intersight Ansible Collection.