Cloud DevOps 2025: Packer, Ansible, SSH and AWS/EC2
What’s New in 2025
Key Updates and Changes
- New EC2 Instance Types: M7i, C7i, and R7i families now available with up to 15% better price-performance
- Packer Updates: Version 1.11 with predictable plugin loading and HCP integration
- Ansible Best Practices: Enhanced aws_ec2 plugin with improved security and performance features
- EBS Volume Evolution: GP3 volumes now standard, offering 20% cost savings over GP2
- HashiCorp Updates: Terraform AWS Provider 6.0 with multi-region support
- Security Enhancements: AWS Verified Access for SSH/RDP, enhanced IAM with ECR Policy v2
Deprecated Features and Migration Notes
- GP2 to GP3 Migration: GP2 volumes should be migrated to GP3 for cost savings
- EC2 Dynamic Inventory: Old ec2.py script deprecated in favor of aws_ec2 plugin
- Instance Types: Consider upgrading from M6i to M7i instances for better performance
- Packer AWS Builder: Continue using amazon-ebs builder with updated authentication methods
Cloud DevOps: Using Packer, Ansible/SSH and AWS command line tools to create and DBA manage EC2 Cassandra instances in AWS.
This article is useful for developers and DevOps/DBA staff who want to create AWS AMI images and manage those EC2 instances with Ansible. Although this article is part of a series about setting up the Cassandra Database images and doing DevOps/DBA with Cassandra clusters, the topics we cover apply to AWS DevOps in general - even if you don’t use Cassandra at all.