Ansible for Networking

Ansible is an open-source automation framework that uses YAML playbooks to define automation tasks. It is agentless — it connects to devices over SSH or APIs without requiring any software to be installed on the managed devices. This makes it ideal for network automation, where you cannot install agents on routers and switches.

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Why Ansible for Networking?

Feature	Benefit for Network Engineers
Agentless	No software to install on network devices
YAML-based	Human-readable, no programming required
Idempotent	Safe to run repeatedly without side effects
Multi-vendor	Modules for Cisco, Arista, Juniper, Palo Alto, and more
Community	Thousands of modules and roles on Ansible Galaxy
Extensible	Write custom modules in Python
Version control	Playbooks stored in Git like any other code

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Ansible Architecture