Among the many configuration management tools available, Ansible has some distinct advantages--it's minimal in nature, you don't need to install anything on your nodes, and it has an easy learning curve. With this updated third edition, you'll learn how to be productive with this tool quickly, whether you're a developer deploying code to production or a system administrator looking for a better automation solution. Authors Bas Meijer, Lorin Hochstein, and Rene Moser show you how to write playbooks (Ansible's configuration management scripts), manage remote servers, and explore the tool's real power: built-in declarative modules. You'll discover that Ansible has the functionality you need--and the simplicity you desire. You'll learn: Ansible configuration management and deployment Ansible best practices How to use the new Collections format How to use Ansible on Windows, Linux, and macOS How to use Ansible in larger organizations How to create a local development environment How to create reusable Ansible content for open source middleware How to create container images, images for cloud instances, and cloud computing instances This book is best read start to finish, with later chapters building on earlier ones. Because it's written in a tutorial style, you can follow along on your own machine. Most examples focus on web applications. The third edition takes the reader to the next level in running Ansible for mission-critical work. Using software engineering methods to validate code quality and test frameworks to verify results in a test setup eradicates the guesswork and assumptions. Ansible 2.10 runs best with Python 3.8.