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Difficulty: Very hardCapabilities of Configuration Management Mechanisms (Puppet, Chef, Ansible)

A network engineering team is evaluating configuration management mechanisms (Ansible, Puppet, and Chef) for automated network device provisioning, compliance auditing, and state enforcement across an enterprise infrastructure. Which of the following statements correctly describe the underlying architectural capabilities, transport protocols, or configuration artifacts of these tools? (Select TWO.)

  1. Ansible utilizes an agentless architecture that primarily relies on SSH or NETCONF to push configuration playbooks formatted in YAML directly to managed network devices.Answer
  2. B
    Puppet operates exclusively as an agentless push-based framework that relies on HTTP GET requests to execute Ruby-based recipes on target routers.
  3. Chef typically employs an agent-based, pull architecture where target nodes run a client agent to periodically request and apply configuration state defined in Recipes and Cookbooks from a central server over HTTPS.Answer
  4. D
    Ansible requires a dedicated client daemon running natively on every managed Cisco IOS XE switch to periodically pull compiled JSON manifests over TCP port 8140.

Answer

Ansible utilizes an agentless push architecture using SSH/NETCONF and YAML playbooks, while Chef relies on an agent-based pull architecture where target nodes pull configuration recipes and cookbooks from a central server over HTTPS.
The statement describing Ansible correctly highlights its agentless nature, push-based workflow via SSH/NETCONF, and use of YAML playbooks. The statement describing Chef correctly identifies its agent-based pull model, where client software queries a central server over HTTPS to fetch Ruby-based recipes and cookbooks.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze Ansible architecture and operational traits.
Ansible is agentless, push-based, uses SSH/NETCONF for network transport, and relies on YAML playbooks.
Network devices generally cannot host full agent software easily, making Ansible's agentless SSH push model highly popular for network automation.
2
Analyze Chef architecture and operational traits.
Chef uses an agent-based (Chef Client), pull-based architecture over HTTPS (TCP 443) using Ruby DSL configuration files (Recipes organized in Cookbooks).
The client agent running on target nodes periodically polls the Chef server to ensure local system state matches the declared policy.
3
Evaluate Puppet traits against incorrect options.
Puppet is primarily agent-based (Pull model, Puppet Manifests, TCP 8140 HTTPS), contrasting with Ansible's agentless model.
Confusing Puppet as an agentless push mechanism or Ansible as requiring a client daemon on switches represents a fundamental misidentification of configuration management architectures.

Key Concept

Capabilities and Architectural Differences of Configuration Management Tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Capabilities of Configuration Management Mechanisms (Puppet, Chef, Ansible)

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