Can you explain what Ansible is and how it is used for configuration automation and deployment?

Ansible is a tool for automating configuration management and application deployment. It uses a simple task description language (YAML), which makes writing and understanding automation scripts easier. Ansible allows centralized management of server settings, installing necessary software, copying files, and executing commands on remote machines without the need to install additional software on them (uses SSH).

Example of a simple playbook for installing nginx on a remote server:

- hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install nginx
      apt:
        name: nginx
        state: present