Ansible – Windows Systems Automation Training
Level
IntermediateDuration
24h / 3 daysDate
Individually arrangedPrice
Individually arrangedAnsible – Windows Systems Automation Training
An intensive workshop for IT teams who want to automate the management of Windows environments using Ansible and the AWX platform. Participants will learn how to design scalable and secure deployment processes, use ready-made collections from Ansible Galaxy, manage access and secrets, and integrate automation with the existing DevOps cycle in their organization following Infrastructure as Code (IaC) best practices. The course is delivered in a hands-on format (80% practice, 20% theory), covering playbooks, modules, collections, as well as aspects of security, versioning, and AWX integration. It guides participants through real-world problems and demonstrates proven solutions based on enterprise project experience. Instead of theory — participants work on workshop scenarios such as application deployments, service management, and access control.
What You Will Learn
- How to create and run Ansible playbooks in Windows environments
- How to use modules, collections, and best practices for managing Windows with Ansible
- Practical skills in AWX, permissions management, and secrets handling
- Automating typical Windows administrative tasks, from configuration to software installation
Windows system administrators and engineers who want to implement task automation-
DevOps and infrastructure specialists working in organizations with large Windows environments
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Operations and maintenance teams planning to standardize and automate configuration
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IT security and compliance professionals seeking greater control and auditability
Training Program
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Introduction
- Overview of orchestration systems
- What is Ansible?
- Basics of YAML and Jinja
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Ansible Basics
- Lab environment – setup and configuration
- What is AWX?
- Installation methods for Ansible and AWX
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Working with Ansible
- Core concepts:
- Variables
- Inventory and smart-inventory
- Playbooks
- Modules
- Roles and collections
- Tasks and plugins
- Creating playbooks, roles, and collections
- Running modules from the command line
- Building deployments from scratch
- Working with configuration templates
- Case study: “zero to hero” – deploying an application with a database and load balancer
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Debugging
- Debugging Ansible playbooks and Jinja2 templates
- Debugging modules:
- Python
- PowerShell
- Running modules and testing during development
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Ansible Galaxy
- Overview of the roles and collections repository
- Using community-provided solutions for faster deployments
- Harnessing the power of the community to accelerate work
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Working in Large Organizations with AWX
- Permission models in AWX – discussion and examples
- Multi-environment concepts:
- Dev
- Test
- QA
- UAT
- Prod
- Shared vs separate inventories
- Where to define variables?
- Inventory types:
- Static
- Dynamic
- Hybrid
- Structuring inventory and subfolders
- Examples of dynamic inventory and custom implementations
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Developer Execution Environments
- Concepts of local Ansible execution environments
- Examples of configuring developer working environments
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Secrets in AWX
- Ansible Vault and automatic secrets loading
- External secrets management concepts
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Windows Orchestration
- Host configuration for Ansible integration:
- WinRM connection
- OpenSSH connection
- Running Ansible modules in PowerShell locally on Linux
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Best Practices for Windows Management
- Using
ansible.windowsandcommunity.windowscollections - Practical topics:
- User and group membership management
- Service and process management
- Software installation
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Additional Topics and Best Practices
- Lookups
- Tagging
- Blocks
run_once, pre-tasks, and post-tasks- Task delegation and retries
- Execution reports
- Safe service restarts
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AWX – Advanced Topics
- AWX installation and configuration methods
- Running with default Ansible execution environment
- Using custom virtual and execution environments
