Ansible is a model-driven configuration management tool that leverages SSH to improve security and simplify management. In addition to configuration management, it is capable of automating app deployment (even multi-tier deployment), workflow orchestration and cloud provisioning, hence the company likes the tool to be categorized as an "orchestration engine." Ansible is built on five design principles including ease of use (doesn't require writing scripts or custom code), low learning curve (both for sysadmins and developers), comprehensive automation (allowing you to automate almost anything in your environment), efficiency (since it runs on OpenSSH it doesn't rely on memory or CPU resources), and security (it is inherently more secure because it doesn't require an agent, additional ports or root level daemons). As many other open source projects, Ansible has a paid product that comes in the form of a web UI called Ansible Tower.