The document discusses the integration of Ansible with AWS for provisioning and managing EC2 instances, focusing on both static and dynamic inventories. It details the use of Ansible playbooks for automated EC2 provisioning, DNS management through Route53, and setting up monitoring and autoscaling workflows. Additionally, it covers example configurations and tasks for creating alerts based on instance metrics and emphasizes practical implementation through provided code examples.

1. Ansible with AWS
from EC2 to Autoscale

2. Bringing Ansible to the Cloud
Static/Dynamic Inventories
Scripted EC2 Provision
Route53 (DNS)
CloudWatch Alerts
Autoscaling Workflow
Demo
1 2

3. Allan Denot
∙ 1 year experience with Ansible
∙ 2 years experience with AWS
∙ DevOps Engineer at cammy.com (previously Suncorp)
∙ Co-founder of spikenode.com
@denot allandenot.com

4. Allan Denot @denot allandenot.com
∙ Brazilian
∙ 4 years in Australia

5. Static Inventory

6. Static Inventory
[webservers]
ws1.catcorp.com ansible_ssh_host=10.0.0.1
---
- hosts: webservers
tasks:
- feed: target=cat
feed.yml
hosts

7. Dynamic Inventory

8. Dynamic Inventory
Available with Ansible
Uses python’s boto library
Returns json
ec2.py

9. Dynamic Inventory
feed.yml
---
- hosts: tag_Type_webservers
tasks:
- feed: target=cat
Servers are
automatically grouped
by any tag.

10. Dynamic Inventory
ansible-playbook -i ec2.py feed.yml
executable
./ec2.py | less
./ec2.py --refresh-cache | less

11. Dynamic Inventory
tag_Type_webservers
security_group_WebserverSG
type_t2_micro
key_AdminKey
vpc_id_vpc-0000000
ap-southeast-2a
You can group by
almost everything.
security_group_WebserverSG:!type_t2_micro
Select all servers that have security group “WebserverSG” and are NOT of the type t2.micro
Examples:
Or, you can combine:

12. Dynamic + Static Inventory

13. Dynamic + Static Inventories
Yes, you can use both together.
mkdir inventory
mv hosts inventory/
mv ec2.py inventory/
ansible-playbook -i inventory feed.yml
it’s a folder!

14. Scripted EC2 Provisioning

15. Scripted EC2 Provisioning
- name: Provision EC2 Box
local_action:
module: ec2
key_name: "{{ ec2_keypair }}"
group_id: "{{ ec2_security_group }}"
instance_type: "{{ ec2_instance_type }}"
image: "{{ ec2_image }}"
vpc_subnet_id: "{{ ec2_subnet_ids|random }}"
region: "{{ ec2_region }}"
instance_tags: '{"Name":"{{ec2_tag_Name}}"}'
assign_public_ip: yes
wait: true
count: 1
volumes:
- device_name: /dev/sda1
device_type: gp2
volume_size: "{{ ec2_volume_size }}"
delete_on_termination: true
register: ec2
vars:
- ec2_keypair: "XX-KEYPAIR-NAME-XX"
- ec2_security_group: "sg-XXXXXXXX"
- ec2_instance_type: "t2.micro"
- ec2_image: "ami-1711732d"
- ec2_subnet_ids: [ 'subnet-XXXXXXXX', 'subnet-XXXXXXXX' ]
- ec2_region: "ap-southeast-2"
- ec2_tag_Name: "Webserver"
- ec2_volume_size: "8"
All code will be in my repository
Check URL at the end of talk

16. DNS

17. DNS
Creating or updating a DNS record based on a tag
- local_action: >
route53
command=create
zone=yourawesomedomain.com
record={{ec2_tag_Name}}.yourawesomedomain.com
type=A
ttl=300
value={{ec2_ip_address}}
overwrite=yes

18. Monitoring

19. Monitoring
Example:
Alerting when CPU Credits are low
on t2.* machines

20. Monitoring
All code will be in my repository
Check URL at the end of talk
---
- hosts: type_t2_small:type_t2_medium
connection: local
gather_facts: false
user: root
tasks:
- name: Create Alarm
ec2_metric_alarm:
state: present
region: "{{ec2_region}}"
name: "{{ec2_tag_Name}} - CPU Credit LOW"
metric: "CPUCreditBalance"
namespace: "AWS/EC2"
statistic: Average
comparison: "<="
threshold: 100.0
period: 300
evaluation_periods: 2
description: "CPU credit dropped below 100"
dimensions: {'InstanceId':'{{ec2_id}}'}
alarm_actions: ["MYSNSACTION"]
insufficient_data_actions: ["MYSNSACTION"]
ok_actions: ["MYSNSACTION"]

21. Autoscaling and Demo

22. Tag
instance as
test passed
Test app*Install
packages,
deploy app,
etc.
Using
ansible ec2
module
Autoscaling Workflow
Create EC2 Configure Test
pre-production/staging environment
* to be covered in a future meetup or blog post

23. Autoscaling Workflow
Bake AMI from EC2
Create new Launch
Configuration
Update Autoscaling Group
with new LC

24. Questions?
Links
github.com/adenot/blog-ansible-autoscaling
allandenot.com
spikenode.com