[Discuss] Anyone use Ansible ? Ansible Semaphore?

[johnhall2.0 at gmail.com (John Hall)]

We usually deal with well defined questions. I have a broader inquiry.

I am interested in setting up central authentication, email, application
and database server,  web application firewall.

Just setting up something where a new node does not require me to add
users and go to the command line and install the OS and package would be
brilliant.
Also being able to know that I can spin something unused down with no
worries about spinning it back up later when I want it would save money.

I have started to use python poetry for my python projects and just find it
brilliant.  It works great with pypi and manages dependencies and virtual
environments with minimal configuration.
I am hoping ansible would be like this on a larger scale. I'm hoping that
it not only lets me configure services but also manage integrations between
them, and to do so with some head start for things I'm not familiar with
because the playbooks that are available I hope are decent templates to get
started or be reminded about what needs to be done and how to do it. Also
when you make it code maybe you can leverage AI some as well.

I've recently messed around with serverless. I ended up spinning
up an application on vercel then a database on neon, redis on upstash. I
then started  thinking about that.  It just seems ridiculously inefficient
technically.  The data centers are not the same. Backend
is stretched across what network links? Can something
inefficient technically really be optimal financially?   I don't know how
much money I could quickly owe. That is more clear when i can just use a
system that fails rather than scales in places.
These thoughts sent me back to at least exploring using Ansible.
Thanks,
John