1. Documentation
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OpenShift Ansible Broker

Overview

The OpenShift Ansible broker (OAB) is an implementation of the Open Service Broker (OSB) API that manages applications defined by Ansible playbook bundles (APBs). APBs provide a new method for defining and distributing container applications in OKD, consisting of a bundle of Ansible playbooks built into a container image with an Ansible runtime. APBs leverage Ansible to create a standard mechanism for automating complex deployments.

The design of the OAB follows this basic workflow:

  1. A user requests list of available applications from the service catalog using the OKD web console.

  2. The service catalog requests the OAB for available applications.

  3. The OAB communicates with a defined container image registry to learn which APBs are available.

  4. The user issues a request to provision a specific APB.

  5. The provision request makes its way to the OAB, which fulfills the user’s request by invoking the provision method on the APB.

Ansible Playbook Bundles

An Ansible playbook bundle (APB) is a lightweight application definition that allows you to leverage existing investment in Ansible roles and playbooks.

APBs use a simple directory with named playbooks to perform OSB API actions, such as provision and bind. Metadata defined in apb.yml spec file contains a list of required and optional parameters for use during deployment.

See the APB Development Guide for details on the overall design and how APBs are written.