> Having to hire someone to customize ansible is the exact opposite of what op asked for and just reaffirms my point: ansible does nothing without significant customization.
When you decide that your cattle is going to be pets and pets get individual care and feeding, you have to hire a lot of people to do the individual care and feeding.
I've done done management of ~2k Linux systems across 17 generations with Ansible. It is not a big deal. You enforce conventions so you no longer have 2k different servers but rather a feet of Betsys, a fleet of Franks, a dozen of Marshas and a couple of Jacks. And you do not touch the boot configuration because even in 2020 you do not need to touch the boot/network configuration.
When you decide that your cattle is going to be pets and pets get individual care and feeding, you have to hire a lot of people to do the individual care and feeding.
I've done done management of ~2k Linux systems across 17 generations with Ansible. It is not a big deal. You enforce conventions so you no longer have 2k different servers but rather a feet of Betsys, a fleet of Franks, a dozen of Marshas and a couple of Jacks. And you do not touch the boot configuration because even in 2020 you do not need to touch the boot/network configuration.