Avantra + Ansible: Better Together for Enterprise SAP Automation

Enterprises trust Ansible for fast, reliable infrastructure automation, including terraform for automated cloud provisioning. Many organizations using Ansible leverage Ansible SAP playbooks for SAP infrastructure automation. Avantra extends the scope of SAP operations using Ansible, adding observability, ITSM and ALM solution integration, and orchestration across the SAP estate.

Avantra and Ansible together provide a closed-loop solution where monitoring, automation and proof of outcome live in one place across on-premise, hyperscaler and private cloud ERP implementations.

Orchestrate without Overload

Leverage Ansible playbooks with Avantra for a single point of control. The Avantra Ansible Collection provides a complete end-to-end automation solution, leveraging existing investments in Ansible scenarios. Avantra executes Ansible playbooks inside any workflow, taking advantage of existing Ansible workflows while adding enhanced SAP automation from Avantra including system refresh and HotNews automation. 

Build dynamic inventories from SAP context. Avantra system selectors convert to Ansible inventory at run time. This eliminates static host files, reduces drift, and keeps playbooks portable across tenants and landscapes.

Trigger Avantra automation from Ansible. Use the official Avantra Ansible Collection to create or remove SAP systems, start and stop, query details, manage servers, and kick off Avantra workflows for more complicated SAP automations where Avantra’s SAP-specific depth of capability is ideal.

Use the Ansible Controller. Keep scheduling, RBAC, and approvals in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Avantra provides integration with the Ansible Automation Controller while adding SAP aware context and post action validation.

Accelerate first day tasks. Leverage sample playbooks to deploy and register agents at scale on Linux and Windows. Bootstrap monitoring quickly, then let Avantra manage ongoing agent updates.

Enhancing the Value of Ansible Automation for SAP

Closed loop, compliance controlled. Avantra observes the SAP stack and automatically detects issues. Launch Ansible remediation steps automatically or on demand while Avantra validates outcomes and records audit trail entries. One platform provides the checks, the engagement and actions, with Ansible as the execution engine. Reduce handoffs, shorten mean time to repair, and create repeatable patterns for service recovery. 

Compliance and control without friction. Playbooks live in Git, Avantra handles credentials, and execution is logged centrally. Security and audit teams get the controls they expect, and operations teams keep Ansible's speed. Avantra 25 adds native support for step inputs to Ansible variables plus Git integration, bringing enterprise grade traceability to SAP runbooks.

Scale with the business. System selectors allow targeting to scale to thousands of systems by role, tag, or environment. Avantra renders the Ansible inventory at execution time, avoiding brittle host files and keeping playbooks focused on intent rather than lists of servers. 

Reuse what you already have. Import existing playbooks and compose them with Avantra’s SAP aware steps. Keep using proven automation for OS, middleware, and cloud, adding Avantra for SAP start and stop, HANA operations, user maintenance, and more. The result is end-to-end automation spanning cloud, OS, database, and SAP application layers.

Deliver measurable outcomes. Integrating Avantra with the Ansible Automation Platform delivers results, reducing manual hours, accelerating changes, detecting issues earlier, and driving faster outage recovery across SAP on-prem and in the cloud.

Run it again, Sam: High Value Now

Ansible and Avantra together provide a high-value combination for the automation of landscape operations, SAP systems, and underlying infrastructure.

Use Ansible for OS patching, and Avantra to automatically confirm HANA tenant status, SAP instance process lists, and business service availability. In the case of failure, automate rollback or targeted remediation. 

When using Ansible for kernel or driver updates, leverage Avantra to pause jobs, coordinate SAP stop, trigger playbooks, and restart SAP, with automatic verification. 

Use the sample playbooks to deploy agents at scale, register systems in Avantra, and begin continuous monitoring. 

Perform system refresh at speed, combining Avantra's SAP automation templates, with Ansible steps for snapshot, network, or OS level tasks. 

The Enterprise Takeaway

Avantra and Ansible together give operations teams a practical path to SAP landscape and operations automation security and audit leaders support, and finances team appreciate.

To learn more about Avantra's Ansible capabilities, speak with one of our experts to find out how Avantra can help transform your SAP landscape.