Empowering Automation with Ansible Lightspeed – Part 1

Overview

In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, where efficiency and automation are paramount, Red Hat, Inc. has unveiled a groundbreaking solution that promises to revolutionize IT automation. Introducing Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant, a powerful generative AI service that aims to democratize automation across organizations, bridging the skills gap and ushering in a new era of streamlined operations.

Introduction to Ansible Lightspeed

Ansible Lightspeed marks the culmination of Red Hat’s Project Wisdom initiative – a visionary endeavor to democratize automation. This transformative service empowers users, contributors, customers, and partners within Red Hat’s ecosystem. Leveraging the capabilities of natural language processing, Ansible Lightspeed integrates seamlessly with IBM’s Watson Code Assistant, which is expected to be universally accessible in the near future. This integration unlocks the potential of IBM’s foundation models, enabling the rapid creation of automation code. The ultimate goal is to address the industry-wide skills gap and accelerate the journey towards automation excellence.

Automation Navigating the Skills Crisis

In an era marked by dynamic industry shifts and economic uncertainties, businesses face the challenge of accomplishing more with fewer resources. A scarcity of crucial IT skills significantly threatens resilience, innovation, and maximizing the benefits of hybrid cloud and automation investments. According to IDC, “90% of global organizations will experience the IT skills crisis by 2025,” potentially hindering revenue growth by up to 20% for enterprises that fail to effectively address the talent and digital skills gap. However, CIOs who invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technologies stand to witness a remarkable 40% increase in productivity by 2025, translating into accelerated expertise development.

The Promise of Ansible Lightspeed

Ansible Lightspeed is pivotal in making automation accessible to a broader audience. Designed with developers and operators in mind, this innovative service offers a significant productivity boost to Ansible users. It enables users to input simple English prompts while simultaneously facilitating the translation of domain expertise into YAML code to create and modify Ansible Playbooks. This democratization of automation empowers even novice users to automate tasks effectively, eliminating the need for experienced automators to engage in low-level task creation.

AI's Role in Domain-Specific Challenges

Domain-specific AI, a harmonious fusion of practical experience and technical innovation, ushers in a new paradigm where AI is tailored to address the unique challenges of specific industries. Ansible Lightspeed epitomizes this concept by leveraging user-generated knowledge to offer precise and consistent recommendations for industry-specific challenges. Ansible Lightspeed delivers tangible value promptly and effectively by bridging the gap between real-world applications and technical innovation.

Collaboration, Transparency, and Choice

Red Hat and IBM’s collaboration on Ansible Lightspeed underscores their commitment to transparency, collaboration, and user choice. An essential facet of this endeavor is proper code source matching, ensuring that the model’s finetuning aligns with the contributors’ intentions. Upstream content contributors will be free to decide whether their work contributes to the enhancement of the model, reinforcing the values of openness and choice.

Ansible Lightspeed using IBM Watsonx Code Assistant

Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant is a project that IBM and Red Hat created. It helps you with Ansible by suggesting things to do in plain English. This project uses a smart computer system connected to an AI service run by Red Hat and the Ansible plugin for VSCode, a program for writing code. It’s available for free to anyone who uses Ansible. The computer system learns from the Ansible community and other information to give good suggestions.

Install Ansible extension in VS Code

This guide shows you how to use Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant. It helps you write code that does things automatically. You can also help teach the computer system by using Ansible Galaxy settings. Red Hat uses special computer learning to make the suggestions better.

• People who make automatic systems

Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant wants to be your expert guide for writing Ansible code. Like all smart computer systems, it needs help from people to work well. Red Hat explains here what information it collects to make the suggestions better.

• How it collects data

When you use the Ansible VS Code plugin with Ansible Lightspeed and IBM Watsonx Code Assistant, it learns from what you do. It remembers the suggestions it gives you and how you use them. This helps it learn over time. The computer system collects this information to get better. The table below shows what information it collects.

Red Hat and IBM will see this information. You can turn off this feature in the plugin settings if you don’t want them to. But things it already learned will still be sent.

Note: The Ansible plugin can collect more information than the computer system needs. The table only discusses what Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant uses.

• Here is what it collects:

1. When you like a suggestion, use it in your code.
2. When you don’t like a suggestion and don’t use it.
3. What you asked for when you got a suggestion.
4. The parts of your code that were there before you got the suggestion.
5. How your code changes after you get the suggestion.
6. What kind of Ansible thing are you working on (like a playbook).
7. When you asked for a suggestion and when you got it.
8. A special number that doesn’t show who you are.
9. A special number that helps keep track of suggestions.

Conclusion

As the digital landscape continues evolving, Ansible Lightspeed stands poised to lead the charge toward a future of efficiency, collaboration, and excellence.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding Ansible Lightspeed and we will get back to you. quickly.

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