Ansible Advanced Patterns Training

Take your Ansible skills to expert level with this 3-day advanced course. Dive deep into custom module development, plugin authoring, collection building, performance tuning, and complex automation patterns used in large-scale production environments.

Training Details

Duration	3 days (24 hours)
Level	Advanced
Delivery	In-person, Live online, Hybrid
Certification	Red Hat Certified Specialist in Developing Automation (EX374)

Who Is This For?

• Experienced Ansible users building custom automation
• Automation architects designing enterprise-grade solutions
• Developers creating custom Ansible modules and plugins
• Teams maintaining large Ansible codebases

Learning Outcomes

After completing this training, participants will be able to:

• Develop custom Ansible modules in Python
• Write callback, filter, and lookup plugins
• Build and publish Ansible collections
• Optimize playbook performance for large-scale environments
• Implement complex automation patterns (delegation, serial, throttling)
• Test automation code with Molecule and ansible-lint

Detailed Agenda

Day 1: Custom Module and Plugin Development

Module 1: Custom Module Development

• Module architecture and AnsibleModule class
• Argument specification and validation
• Return values and check mode support
• Hands-on: Write a custom module with full argument spec

Module 2: Plugin Development

• Plugin types — callback, filter, lookup, inventory, connection
• Filter plugins for data transformation
• Lookup plugins for external data sources
• Hands-on: Build custom filter and lookup plugins

Module 3: Collections Development

• Collection structure and galaxy.yml
• Packaging modules, plugins, and roles
• Versioning, changelogs, and publishing
• Hands-on: Build and publish a complete Ansible collection

Day 2: Performance and Scale

Module 4: Performance Optimization

• Profiling playbook execution with callback plugins
• SSH pipelining and connection tuning
• Fact caching strategies
• Hands-on: Benchmark and optimize slow playbooks

Module 5: Large-Scale Patterns

• Serial execution and rolling updates
• Delegation and cross-host orchestration
• Async tasks and polling
• Hands-on: Implement zero-downtime rolling deployments

Module 6: Advanced Inventory Patterns

• Composed and constructed inventories
• Custom inventory plugins
• Inventory variable merging strategies
• Hands-on: Build a custom dynamic inventory plugin

Day 3: Testing and Enterprise Patterns

Module 7: Testing Automation Code

• Linting with ansible-lint and custom rules
• Unit testing modules with pytest
• Integration testing with Molecule
• Hands-on: Set up Molecule for role testing

Module 8: Advanced Playbook Patterns

• Complex variable management with include_vars
• Dynamic includes vs static imports
• Encryption with Ansible Vault — multi-vault strategies
• Hands-on: Implement multi-environment secret management

Module 9: Enterprise Automation Architecture

• Repository structures for large organizations
• Shared roles and collections governance
• CI/CD pipelines for Ansible code
• Hands-on: Design and implement an enterprise automation repository

Prerequisites

• 6+ months hands-on Ansible experience
• Comfortable writing playbooks and roles
• Basic Python programming knowledge
• Understanding of Ansible inventory and variable precedence

Delivery Formats

Format	Description
In-Person	On-site at your company's location, hands-on with direct interaction
Live Online	Interactive virtual sessions with screen sharing and real-time labs
Hybrid	Combination of on-site and remote sessions, flexible scheduling

All formats include hands-on labs, course materials, and post-training support.