Introduction to Ansible Workshop
Ansible training, live online: playbooks, roles, Jinja2 templates and Vault in 3 days. Hands-on in your own cloud environment, small groups of max 8 people.
Ansible
Deklarative Automatisierung mit Ansible-Playbooks, Rollen und Collections.
36 items
From Binary Alerts to Observability: Revolutionizing Capacity Planning
In the history of medium-sized IT infrastructures and system houses, having one's own data center was considered an undeniable competitive advantage for decades. Those who control the hardware have absolute data sovereignty, manage update cycles independently, and can flexibly address compliance questions. To manage the growing number of servers and customer applications, clever administrators early on relied on automation tools: VMware for virtualization, Ansible for provisioning, and custom shell scripts or cron jobs for recurring Day-2 tasks.
The End of Person-Dependent Automation
In the history of mid-sized IT infrastructures and system houses, having one's own data center was considered an undeniable competitive advantage for decades. Those who control the hardware have absolute data sovereignty, manage update cycles independently, and can flexibly address compliance issues. To manage the growing number of servers and customer applications, clever administrators early on adopted automation tools: VMware for virtualization, Ansible for provisioning, and custom shell scripts or cron jobs for recurring Day-2 tasks.
Secure by Design – Part 7
In the previous parts of this series, we explored various aspects of modern platform architectures. We examined why control over infrastructure is increasingly shifting from the actual target systems to the automation layer, why reproducibility is a security requirement, the role of trust relationships and identities, why governance must be technically enforceable, and why standardization is the prerequisite for controllable platforms.
Secure by Design – Part 3
In recent years, Infrastructure as Code has become one of the most crucial components of modern platform architectures. Hardly any organization today operates larger cloud or Kubernetes environments without Terraform, OpenTofu, Ansible, or similar tools. Infrastructure is described, versioned, and deployed automatically. From an operational perspective, this undoubtedly represents a significant advancement over manual processes.
Secure by Design - Part 1
The discussion about IT security is still dominated by a misconception. Security is often seen as an additional layer applied to existing systems. Initially, applications are developed, infrastructures are built, and automation processes are established. Only then do firewalls, vulnerability scanners, endpoint protection, or compliance measures follow.
From "Fear Deployment" to Routine: Zero-Downtime Releases with GitOps
In many mature SaaS infrastructures, the day of a software release is a day of tension. The engineering team has worked for weeks on new features, but the moment of rollout becomes a nail-biter. When deployments are manually pushed to virtual machines (VMs) via SSH scripts or Ansible playbooks, the risk is high.
Transforming Mature Ansible Structures into a Scalable Polycrate Platform Architecture
In modern enterprise IT environments, traditional, long-established Ansible structures are increasingly reaching their limits. What often began as an efficient solution for ad-hoc automation has now manifested as an unwieldy "playbook sprawl" and the infamous "Python dependency hell." The manual maintenance of virtual environments on individual administrator workstations ("snowflake workstations") leads to inconsistencies, complicates onboarding, and poses a significant compliance risk. Polycrate acts as a strategic enabler: it transforms automation from a script-based activity into a scalable platform architecture. This not only ensures operational excellence but also strengthens digital sovereignty through provider-independent, reproducible processes that decouple deployment tooling from the underlying cloud infrastructure.
Polycrate API for Teams: Centralized Monitoring and Remote Triggering
Polycrate API for Teams: Centralized Monitoring, Remote Triggering, and Encryption Key Management
Auditable Operations: SSH Sessions and CLI Activities with Polycrate API
Auditable SSH sessions and CLI activities: Who did what and when – thanks to Polycrate API
Your First Productive Polycrate Workspace: A Checklist for Getting Started
The first productive Polycrate workspace: Checklist and best practices for getting started
The Polycrate Ecosystem: PolyHub, API, MCP, and the Future of Automation
The Polycrate Ecosystem: PolyHub, API, MCP, and the Future of Infrastructure Automation
Polycrate vs. plain Ansible: What You Gain – and Why It's Worth It
Polycrate vs. plain Ansible: The Honest Direct Comparison
Polycrate MCP: Connecting AI Assistants with Live Infrastructure Context
Polycrate MCP: Hub, docs, and schemas for AI assistants – stdio, tools, and wiring Cursor, Claude, and more correctly explained
Enterprise Automation: Building, Versioning, and Sharing Blocks Within Teams
Enterprise Automation: Building, Versioning, and Sharing Polycrate Blocks Within Teams
Managing Raspberry Pi and Edge Nodes with Polycrate in IoT and Edge Computing
Managing Raspberry Pi and Edge Nodes with Polycrate and Ansible in IoT and Edge Computing
Workspace Encryption: Managing Secrets in GDPR Compliance – Without External Tooling
Workspace encryption with Polycrate: GDPR-compliant secrets management without external tooling
Policy as Code: Automating Compliance Requirements with Polycrate
Automate compliance requirements: Policy as Code with Ansible and Polycrate
Helm Charts as a Polycrate Block: More Control Over Chart Deployments
Orchestrating Helm Charts with Ansible and Polycrate: more control, more reproducibility
SSH Sessions and kubectl Debugging: Polycrate as an Operations Tool
SSH sessions and kubectl debugging directly from the Polycrate workspace
Multi-Cluster Kubernetes with Polycrate: Why One Cluster, One Workspace
Multi-Cluster Kubernetes with Polycrate: One Workspace per Cluster, Shared Blocks via Registry
Creating Your Own Kubernetes App as a Polycrate Block: A Step-by-Step Guide
Build your own Kubernetes app as a reusable Polycrate block
Deploy Kubernetes Apps from the PolyHub: From Idea to Deployment in Minutes
Deploy Kubernetes apps from the PolyHub: leverage official ayedo blocks
Hybrid Automation: Windows and Linux in the Same Polycrate Workspace
Hybrid Infrastructure: Managing Windows and Linux in the Same Polycrate Workspace
Windows Software Deployment without SCCM: Chocolatey and Ansible
Windows Software Deployment without SCCM: Chocolatey and Ansible with Polycrate
Windows Automation with Polycrate: Ansible and WinRM Without Pain
Automate Windows servers with Ansible and Polycrate via WinRM
Many Servers, One Truth: Multi-Server Management with Polycrate Inventories
Multi-server management with Ansible inventories in Polycrate
Managing Docker Stacks on Linux Servers with Polycrate
Automate Docker Compose stacks on Linux servers with Polycrate and Ansible
Nginx and Let's Encrypt as a Reusable Polycrate Block
Building and sharing Nginx and Let's Encrypt as a reusable Polycrate block
Linux Servers on Autopilot: System Management with Polycrate and Ansible
Automate Linux server management with Polycrate and Ansible
Blocks, Actions, and Workspaces: The Modular Principle of Polycrate
The Modular Principle of Polycrate: Explained Blocks, Actions, and Workspaces
Install Polycrate and Build Your First Ansible Block in 15 Minutes
Install Polycrate CLI and build your first Ansible block in 15 minutes
How Polycrate Tames Heterogeneous Tool Stacks
Operating a modern IT infrastructure today often feels like being a mechanic who needs a different workshop for every screw. We use **Terraform** for cloud resources, **Ansible** for server configuration, **Helm** for Kubernetes apps, and a handful of **Bash scripts** to somehow hold everything together.
Polycrate CLI 0.29.1 released: Ansible Upgrade and Secrets Registry Merge
Polycrate CLI 0.29.1 brings Ansible 13.2.0 with kubernetes.core 6.1.0 support and correct merging of registry credentials from secrets.poly.
Polycrate: Deployment Automation for Kubernetes and Cloud Migration
Polycrate: Migration from On-Premise to Kubernetes
K3s on Flatcar via Ansible & vSphere: Automated K8s for Regulated Environments
In industries like manufacturing, finance, or critical infrastructures, **automation** is not a "nice-to-have" but a mandatory necessity. Kubernetes is well-established – yet the **provisioning of control planes** in **regulated on-premises environments** remains complex.