Learn the key step required in Ansible to enable automatic scaling and configuration management of virtual machines for an online retailer. Discover how dynamic inventory plug-ins simplify VM automation.
Table of Contents
Question
An online retailer uses 200 cloud-hosted virtual machines (VMs). Currently, the configuration of each VM is performed manually. To support the growth strategy of the retailer, the retailer starts to automatically scale the VMs to meet demand and uses Ansible for configuration management.
Which action must be performed in Ansible to meet the requirements before automation is performed?
A. Register each VM in Ansible.
B. Add each VM to the .ini inventory file.
C. Set up and configure Ansible Tower.
D. Configure a dynamic inventory plug-in.
Answer
To meet the requirements of automatically scaling the virtual machines (VMs) and using Ansible for configuration management, the correct action that must be performed in Ansible is:
D. Configure a dynamic inventory plug-in.
Explanation
In the given scenario, the online retailer is using cloud-hosted VMs that need to scale automatically based on demand. Manually adding each VM to the Ansible inventory file (.ini) or registering them individually in Ansible would be impractical and inefficient, especially when dealing with a large and dynamically changing number of VMs.
The best approach is to configure a dynamic inventory plug-in in Ansible. Dynamic inventory plug-ins allow Ansible to automatically discover and manage the inventory of cloud resources, such as VMs, based on predefined criteria. These plug-ins integrate with the cloud provider’s API to fetch the current state of the resources and provide an up-to-date inventory to Ansible.
By configuring a dynamic inventory plug-in, Ansible can dynamically retrieve the list of VMs from the cloud provider and use that information for configuration management tasks. This eliminates the need for manual intervention and ensures that Ansible always has an accurate and current inventory of the VMs, even as they scale up or down based on demand.
Setting up Ansible Tower (option C) is not a prerequisite for using dynamic inventory plug-ins. While Ansible Tower provides additional features and a web-based interface for managing Ansible, it is not mandatory for the given requirements.
Therefore, configuring a dynamic inventory plug-in is the correct action to perform in Ansible to enable automatic scaling and configuration management of the VMs for the online retailer.
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