Transforming Defense operations: The impact of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform within the DoD

In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, security and infrastructure management, the Department of Defense (DoD) faces unprecedented challenges. The demands for efficiency, scalability and security are escalating, requiring innovative solutions that can meet these needs without adding complexity to existing systems.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform can help. Ansible Automation Platform is an industry-leading platform that has emerged as a game-changer for the DoD. This article aims to shed light on how Ansible Automation Platform is revolutionizing operations and contributing to the mission-critical activities of the DoD by saving time and resources. 

Simplifying complexity

One of the key issues the DoD faces is the sheer complexity of its systems. With a vast range of hardware, software and networks, keeping everything working seamlessly is a monumental task.

Ansible Automation Platform’s agentless architecture eliminates the need for additional software on the target machines, thereby reducing system complexity. Its simple YAML scripts allow administrators to outline the desired state of the system, which Ansible Automation Platform then automatically implements.

By leveraging Ansible Automation Platform's agentless architecture and simple scripting, the DoD can reduce the time spent on system setup and maintenance. This means faster deployments and fewer resources dedicated to managing system intricacies.

Ansible Automation Platform can also create inventories of managed hosts dynamically, allowing more accurate management of infrastructure. Dynamic inventories allow teams to query existing infrastructure providing real-time inventory management of endpoints such as server and network device status including hardware configuration, power status and other critical information.

Scalability and agility

As security threats advance and evolve, defensive measures must also adapt. The DoD needs a flexible solution capable of scaling quickly.

With Ansible Automation Platform, new configurations can be rolled out across multiple systems simultaneously, resulting in streamlining updates and scaling operations. This agility means that the DoD can rapidly adapt to new challenges and implement changes with fewer system downtimes. This speed not only helps make IT teams more effective, but also acts as a force multiplier for IT operations personnel.

With Ansible Automation Platform, fewer IT staff can manage more systems and handle security threats more effectively, essentially doing more with less. This allows the Defense Department to better use its resources and stay agile in responding to security challenges.

Ansible Automation Platform's ability to quickly roll out configurations across numerous systems means that the DoD can adapt faster to threats, reducing the time and manpower required for manual updates. Ansible Automation Platform has helped units keep their operating systems up to date by automating the deployment of patches and upgrades to capitalize on scalability and agility.

Security

The DoD has stringent security requirements, often needing to adhere to standards like the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the Risk Management Framework (RMF).

Ansible Automation Platform helps IT teams implement these security protocols more effectively. By automating repetitive tasks, Ansible Automation Platform reduces the potential for human error, one of the major contributors to security vulnerabilities. Additionally, Ansible Automation Platform enables automated audits for compliance with security standards Automated security protocols drastically reduce preparation time for audits by making the standard operating procedure documentation and implementation the same process. 

One customer needed to add STIG hardening to existing systems as well as newly provisioned systems. Ansible Automation Platform's idempotent capability allowed the customer to create a playbook that regularly runs against all systems correcting for drift. The customer was then able to simply run the exact same playbook on newly provisioned systems to stay consistent with the security baseline.

Disaster recovery and redundancy

When it comes to national defense, there is no room for error or system failures. Ansible Automation Platform helps enable systems that can be quickly restored in the event of disasters. 

Automated backup processes and rapid deployment of recovery protocols help the DoD maintain operational integrity even in the most challenging situations. Automated disaster recovery processes mean faster system restoration times, reducing downtime and helping the DoD quickly return to full operational capacity after a disaster.

Automated disaster recovery not only enables rapid return to full operational capability, but it can also be used to quickly replicate production environments for testing and also enables on-demand environment scaling.

This capability was particularly useful for a customer with a single environment that was designated as a test environment, but that was heavily relied on for day-to-day work and frequently broke due to conflicting changes from different teams. Ansible Automation Platform allowed this customer to baseline the existing environment and easily create replicas in the cloud so each team could safely test changes and destroy the environment when complete for cost saving.

Cost-efficiency

Budget constraints are a real concern for any governmental organization, including the DoD. Automating processes with Ansible Automation Platform not only streamlines operations, but also contributes to cost savings. By reducing the time and resources needed for system maintenance and management, the DoD can reallocate those resources to mission-critical activities. The efficiencies gained from Ansible Automation Platform’s capabilities translate directly into cost savings. Fewer manual interventions mean less staff time spent on routine tasks, allowing the DoD to focus on more strategic initiatives with the saved resources.

Relevance to the DoD

Ansible Automation Platform serves as an orchestration layer that can manage multiple technologies in the DoD's stack, while remaining vendor agnostic. Its automation capabilities make it invaluable for rapid deployments, disaster recovery and in securely scaling operations. The platform also excels in compliance assurance, a necessity in the DoD's highly regulated environment.

Additionally, check out this article on how the DoD can leverage Ansible Automation Platform together with Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment (AIDE). Ansible Automation Platform is critical to a DoD world where system administrators often have at least one additional job of being a combat-ready servicemember first. The ability to perform routine tasks consistently with little sleep and high stress for mission-critical systems cannot be undervalued.

Closing

Ansible Automation Platform provides a supported and scalable platform that allows multiple teams to collaborate without sharing secrets such as passwords or allowing arbitrary unauthorized privileged actions. This robust platform is the natural evolution from the open source Ansible that is commonly used to evaluate the potential benefits that automation can bring to an organization.

The Department of Defense needs tools that are safe, scalable and easy to use in order to better achieve success in their most demanding missions. Ansible Automation Platform excels at simplifying and automating a variety of tasks and processes, from deploying new software and applications, to managing system configurations, to executing real-time system updates.

When integrated with other Red Hat solutions, Ansible Automation Platform creates a comprehensive ecosystem that enables the Department of Defense to maintain a state-of-the-art and agile operational environment. As the Department of Defense tackles its complex and unique challenges while reducing both time and resources, Ansible Automation Platform continues to become more and more essential.