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Ansible vs Docker Swarm: What are the differences?
Key Differences Between Ansible and Docker Swarm
Ansible and Docker Swarm are both popular technologies used in the field of DevOps. While they share similarities in terms of automating tasks and managing infrastructure, they have some key differences that set them apart.
Architecture: Ansible follows a push-based architecture, where a control machine sends instructions to remote hosts over SSH. On the other hand, Docker Swarm follows a pull-based architecture, where agents running on each node continuously pull and update the desired state of the cluster from a centralised manager.
Functionality: Ansible is primarily a configuration management tool that allows users to define and apply desired configurations on remote machines. It focuses on managing the state of systems and automating tasks. Docker Swarm, however, is a container orchestration tool that enables the deployment and management of containerized applications across a cluster of machines.
Scalability: Docker Swarm supports horizontal scaling by allowing users to add or remove nodes dynamically. The manager distributes workload and orchestrates containers across the available nodes. Ansible, on the other hand, is not designed for massive scalability as it needs to connect to each remote machine individually. The scalability of Ansible is limited by the capacity of the control machine.
Dependencies and System Requirements: Ansible has comparatively lower system requirements and can be easily set up on a wide range of infrastructure. It only requires a control machine, SSH connection, and Python installed on remote hosts. Docker Swarm, on the other hand, requires a Docker Engine on individual nodes and has higher system requirements as it relies on containerization technology.
Ease of Use: Ansible is known for its simplicity and easy learning curve. It uses a declarative language for defining configurations, making it easier to understand and maintain. On the other hand, Docker Swarm requires some understanding of containerization concepts and a more complex setup process, making it comparatively less user-friendly for beginners.
Community and Ecosystem: Ansible has a mature and active community, offering a vast amount of modules and roles for various configuration management tasks. It integrates well with other tools, such as Jenkins, Git, and various cloud providers. Docker Swarm, being part of the Docker ecosystem, benefits from a large community and a wide range of containerized applications available on Docker Hub.
In summary, Ansible and Docker Swarm differ in their architectural approach, functionality, scalability, system requirements, ease of use, and community support. Ansible focuses on configuration management and task automation, while Docker Swarm is a container orchestration tool for managing containerized applications.
I'm just getting started using Vagrant to help automate setting up local VMs to set up a Kubernetes cluster (development and experimentation only). (Yes, I do know about minikube)
I'm looking for a tool to help install software packages, setup users, etc..., on these VMs. I'm also fairly new to Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. What's a good one to start with to learn? I might decide to try all 3 at some point for my own curiosity.
The most important factors for me are simplicity, ease of use, shortest learning curve.
I have been working with Puppet and Ansible. The reason why I prefer ansible is the distribution of it. Ansible is more lightweight and therefore more popular. This leads to situations, where you can get fully packaged applications for ansible (e.g. confluent) supported by the vendor, but only incomplete packages for Puppet.
The only advantage I would see with Puppet if someone wants to use Foreman. This is still better supported with Puppet.
If you are just starting out, might as well learn Kubernetes There's a lot of tools that come with Kube that make it easier to use and most importantly: you become cloud-agnostic. We use Ansible because it's a lot simpler than Chef or Puppet and if you use Docker Compose for your deployments you can re-use them with Kubernetes later when you migrate
Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)
The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:
- Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
- Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
- Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
- Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
- Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
- Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
Pros of Ansible
- Agentless284
- Great configuration210
- Simple199
- Powerful176
- Easy to learn155
- Flexible69
- Doesn't get in the way of getting s--- done55
- Makes sense35
- Super efficient and flexible30
- Powerful27
- Dynamic Inventory11
- Backed by Red Hat9
- Works with AWS7
- Cloud Oriented6
- Easy to maintain6
- Vagrant provisioner4
- Simple and powerful4
- Multi language4
- Simple4
- Because SSH4
- Procedural or declarative, or both4
- Easy4
- Consistency3
- Well-documented2
- Masterless2
- Debugging is simple2
- Merge hash to get final configuration similar to hiera2
- Fast as hell2
- Manage any OS1
- Work on windows, but difficult to manage1
- Certified Content1
Pros of Docker Swarm
- Docker friendly55
- Easy to setup46
- Standard Docker API40
- Easy to use38
- Native23
- Free22
- Clustering made easy13
- Simple usage12
- Integral part of docker11
- Cross Platform6
- Labels and annotations5
- Performance5
- Easy Networking3
- Shallow learning curve3
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Cons of Ansible
- Dangerous8
- Hard to install5
- Doesn't Run on Windows3
- Bloated3
- Backward compatibility3
- No immutable infrastructure2
Cons of Docker Swarm
- Low adoption9
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