Hello all, Wei
I think that's a great initiative, we should definitely trim the
codebase of old and unused integration/features. However, I think we
should not do this in a minor release. We could decide on what plugins
should be removed and announce/deprecate them in the next release.
However, the removal of features should only happen in major releases.
I would like to once again bring back the recent discussions on
versioning:
https://lists.apache.org/thread/lh45w55c3jmhm7w2w0xgdvlw78pd4p87,
https://lists.apache.org/thread/4zs8d15ghvvwwro46ry5zjf8fn8x0t88,
https://lists.apache.org/thread/o6o9h3qp8gqrpq4v7o81tl6vp51tkjhg, and
https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/discussions/8970. I think we should
really sit down and discuss the direction that we want to bring the
project. We should build a consensus on a versioning schema that will
come with the proper mechanisms of deprecating/removing features, as
well as introducing breaking changes.
Looking at those discussions and Daniel's topics of discussions (see
https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/discussions/8970#discussioncomment-9754199)
here would be my new proposal:
1. **Looking at our history, what would be the ideal cadence of major
releases for our context and why?** On average, we take 9 months to
release a new minor version. Considering that our 'minor' versions are
where our major changes happen, we could take this cadence of minor
versions and transfer it into major ones. Furthermore, as we will have
mechanisms to introduce breaking changes (and those tend to take time),
we should add some padding on those 9 months and make it 1 year. We also
do not need to decide on a specific month to release the version, we
could have a quarter (Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4) that is when the version is scheduled
to release. That way, we will have some predictability on when the
release is out, but also some flexibility.
2. **How and when should we define the RM for each major?** For the
'how', I like the current system of someone volunteering and the
community voting on them; I don't see any reason to change this. As for
the 'when', the week following a new release, we should already have a
new RM to guide the next one. This way, we avoid having an aimless
project for too long.
3. **How should we introduce disruptive changes and remove
compatibility?** For our first major release, I think we should announce
these changes as soon as the discussions about versioning are over and
introduce these changes on that release. But for the future, the better
method would be: on one major release, we announce the disruptive
changes and deprecate the necessary code; on the next one we introduce
the changes.
4. **What are the community's common goals?** From our discussions, it
seems like a part of the community wants to keep the project as is and
not introduce too many breaking changes. However, we also have another
part of the community that wants to evolve the project and try to make
it even better. As always with a community we should strive to build a
consensus on changes, if they should or not happen. We could have an
annual discussion planned to map what are the next year's goals, as well
as decide on things that should not change (at least at the time). This
discussion could be held at the start of a new major release cycle so
that the RM has a north to follow and steer the community efforts. I
think that one common goal that we should try to achieve is the creation
of an automated release process. We could create a pipeline that does
most (or all) the release process so that we only have to approve it
(and tweak it if needed) before releasing.
5. **Regarding minor releases, should we flexibilize it more or be more
rigid?** I think we should concentrate our big and new features on the
major versions; while tweaks and bug fixes would go on the minor
releases. This way, we can have more stable minor releases that do not
introduce too much stuff at a time. Focusing on the major releases for
new features will allow us to better test them and do better quality
control.
If there is further interest in continuing the discussion on the release
process/versioning, please create a new thread so we can discuss it and
hammer it down.
Best regards,
João Jandre
On 9/18/24 11:19, Wei ZHOU wrote:
Thanks Byran.
I think we will definitely keep the following the plugins
- kvm, vmware, xenserver, simulator
- ovs, vxlan, nsx, tungsten, internal-lb
hyperv is not well-maintained, but I prefer to keep it. ovm/ovm3/ucs
support could be dropped.
for the network plugins, I do not have preferences. good to know that Palo
alto is interested.
in ACS 4.21 or 4.22, you might see some more VNF improvements (e.g. a
provider framework and an implementation)
Kind regards,
Wei
On Wed, Sep 18, 2024 at 3:25 PM Bryan Tiang <bryantian...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Wei Zhou,
We dont use any of the plugins listed, but some do stand out:
# HyperV # We dont use it right now, but would definitely use it if it was
more mature. Some enterprise-ey applications we use require HyperV (other
than Vmware) for some reason (Eg. Oneidentity Privilege Access Mgmt
System), so we maintain a small cluster of HyperV outside of cloudstack.
But if there's no intention to enhance these, id suggest to remove it. With
people moving out of Vmware and looking for alternatives, Cloudstack docs
should show the fairly supported items. Its just better on optics and CS
adoption.
# Palo Alto # I believe this was built by CloudOps by Aptum in 2014? We
were researching this extensively cause we wanted to implement some NGFW
capabilities in our setup, but it seems the project wasn't maintained over
the years. Im not sure whos using it, but it's sad there wasn't much
uptake. Probably because Palo Alto is really expensive now. If there was a
fortinet plugin, we'd be very interested. But right now, we settled on
using VNF + L2 Networks.
Note: Please dont remove VXLAN plugin... will self destruct.
