Or: why doesn't it work here, when it works everywhere else?
Why doesn't it work here when it works everywhere else?
Some 2 years old. Some a couple of months. Some freshly provisioned.None of them are exactly alike.
Prod breaks on a Tuesday. You can't reproduce the bug locally. You can't scale reliably. You can't onboard a new server without fear.
Yes, even your AI assistant can write it*. But you still need to understand what it deploys.
Your AI assistant can write it*. You still need to understand what it deploys.
Managing infrastructure through machine-readable files, stored in version control.
Machine-readable files. Version-controlled. Automated.
Puppet · Ansible · Terraform — each fights a different battle.
Puppet · Ansible · Terraform — each solves a different problem.
Handle it with care. Don't feed it to your LLM.
Handle with care.
If it has an API, there's a Terraform provider for it.
- Terraform Enterprise / HCP Terraform — HashiCorp's commercial offering: remote state, RBAC, audit logs - Spacelift — GitOps-first CI/CD for Terraform (and OpenTofu) - Atlantis — open-source: plan & apply triggered by pull requests - env0, Scalr — SaaS alternatives with policy & cost management -
Ansible is the tool you reach for when you need to do something — once, or every week.
The go-to tool for one-off tasks and recurring operations.
- AWX — open-source web UI, API, and scheduler for Ansible - Ansible Automation Platform (Red Hat) — enterprise version of AWX, with support & integrations - Semaphore — lightweight open-source alternative to AWX - The core Ansible engine remains Apache 2.0 — truly open-source. -
Core engine remains Apache 2.0 — truly open-source.
puppet-agent
Drift is corrected automatically — without anyone lifting a finger.
Drift is corrected automatically.
Each one solves a different layer of the same problem.
Each solves a different layer of the same problem.