Dynamic Inventory Management for Cloud Providers

Task Overview

Dynamic inventory management is essential for DevOps teams managing cloud infrastructure at scale. This task focuses on integrating dynamic inventory scripts with Ansible for cloud providers (AWS EC2, Azure) to automate inventory updates, resource tagging, and grouping based on metadata. The implementation will ensure that inventory is always up to date, reducing manual overhead and improving efficiency in cloud infrastructure management.

Key Objectives

• Implement Ansible Dynamic Inventory for AWS and Azure.
• Automate resource discovery and grouping using metadata.
• Utilize tags to categorize and manage cloud resources.
• Enable auto-scaling support with dynamic inventory updates.
• Integrate with Jenkins for CI/CD pipelines.
• Store inventory data in a central location for logging and monitoring.

Architecture Diagram

The high-level architecture consists of:

1. Cloud Providers: AWS and Azure
2. Ansible Dynamic Inventory Plugin
3. Tagging and Grouping Automation
4. Integration with Jenkins
5. Logging and Monitoring using Prometheus & Grafana

Technology Stack

• Cloud: AWS (EC2, IAM, S3), Azure (VMs, Resource Groups)
• Configuration Management: Ansible
• Scripting & Automation: Python, Bash
• Version Control: GitHub/GitLab
• CI/CD: Jenkins
• Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana
• Logging: ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)

Implementation Steps

1. Infrastructure Setup

AWS Setup

• Create EC2 instances with required tags.
• Set up IAM roles and policies for Ansible access.
• Enable AWS CLI with programmatic access.

Azure Setup

• Create Azure VMs in different resource groups.
• Assign Azure Managed Identity for authentication.
• Install Azure CLI for inventory management.

2. Configure Ansible Dynamic Inventory

Install Ansible inventory plugins:

        ansible-galaxy collection install amazon.aws
        ansible-galaxy collection install azure.azcollection
    

AWS Dynamic Inventory Configuration (aws_inventory.yaml)

plugin: amazon.aws.aws_ec2
regions:
  - us-east-1
  - us-west-1
filters:
  tag:Environment: production
keyed_groups:
  - key: tags.Name
    prefix: tag_
  - key: instance_type
    prefix: type_
    

Azure Dynamic Inventory Configuration (azure_inventory.yaml)

plugin: azure.azcollection.azure_rm
auth_source: auto
keyed_groups:
  - key: tags.Environment
    prefix: env_
  - key: location
    prefix: region_
    

Test dynamic inventory:

        ansible-inventory -i aws_inventory.yaml --graph
        ansible-inventory -i azure_inventory.yaml --graph
    

3. Automate Tagging and Grouping

AWS Tagging Script (Python)

import boto3

ec2 = boto3.client('ec2')
instances = ec2.describe_instances()
for reservation in instances['Reservations']:
    for instance in reservation['Instances']:
        instance_id = instance['InstanceId']
        ec2.create_tags(
            Resources=[instance_id],
            Tags=[{'Key': 'Environment', 'Value': 'Production'}]
        )
    

Azure Resource Tagging

        az resource tag --resource-group myResourceGroup --tags Environment=Production
    

4. Integrate with Jenkins

Create Jenkins Pipeline for Inventory Updates:

pipeline {
    agent any
    stages {
        stage('Fetch AWS Inventory') {
            steps {
                sh 'ansible-inventory -i aws_inventory.yaml --graph'
            }
        }
        stage('Fetch Azure Inventory') {
            steps {
                sh 'ansible-inventory -i azure_inventory.yaml --graph'
            }
        }
        stage('Deploy Playbook') {
            steps {
                sh 'ansible-playbook -i aws_inventory.yaml deploy.yml'
            }
        }
    }
}
    

5. Logging & Monitoring

• Enable CloudWatch Logs for AWS inventory
• Send logs to ELK stack for better visualization
• Use Prometheus & Grafana for monitoring Ansible runs

Expected Outcomes

• ✅ Real-time inventory updates across AWS and Azure
• ✅ Automated resource grouping based on tags
• ✅ Seamless integration with Jenkins for CI/CD
• ✅ Reduced manual effort in managing infrastructure

Next Steps

• 🔹 Extend support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• 🔹 Add Slack or Email notifications for inventory changes
• 🔹 Implement auto-scaling triggers based on dynamic inventory

This project provides a scalable solution for dynamic inventory management, making cloud infrastructure more manageable and efficient.