So far, we have been looking at modules that interact with servers. In our case, they have all been running locally. In later chapters, we will be communicating with remotely hosted servers. Before we start interacting with remote servers, we should cover the core network modules.

These modules have all been designed to interact with and manage the configuration of various network devices, from traditional top-of-rack switches and fully virtualized network infrastructure, to firewalls and load balancers. There are quite a lot of very different devices supported by Ansible, from open source virtual appliances all the way through to solutions that can potentially cost over $500,000, depending on your configuration.