[shadycuz]

So Ansible is a Configuration as Code tool (CaC). You know for configuring your servers and network things.

Terraform is a Infrastructure as Code tool (IaC). Great at deploying the underlying raw resources.

Just like you can take a screw driver and use it as a hammer, punch or pry bar. You could also deploy infra with Ansible or configure servers with Terraform. I have done it, seen others do it and try my best to avoid it. You really want the best tool for the job but sometimes you need the best tool for the person/situation. A air powered hammer is a really nice tool to have but if you are in a place where they don't have compressed air, then a regular hammer will do and if the locals don't have hammers, then find a rock. So sometimes we do weird things with our tools, is it useful? Possibly to the person at the time.

I don't think Ansible is trying to fit into IaC. I think CaC and IaC are just a set of tools that are trying to fit into DevOps/SRE.

A really nice approach I have built for clients over the years when deploying non-containerized applications is to use Packer with Ansible to build a image of the server. Then use Terraform to deploy the infra. Then comeback with Ansible to do runtime stuff like Security tools, enroll into monitoring and also deploy the running application if not already baked into the image.

If you are containerized then just switch out packer for docker.