Hi JClouds folks, We'd like to contribute Azure support to JClouds. We already have a fairly complete implementation of compute and storage and plan to work further on this implementation. However, this implementation is built against an the Azure Java SDK rather than the REST API. From conversations with some folks familiar with JClouds I understand that this is not the usual way of doing things here.
There are good reasons why we've implemented it this way. We can go into those if you want, but it will make no real difference since that's the working code we have available. It is feasible that we'd consider moving this over to a REST API if active community members are going to help with the work, but if it's just our ongoing contributions then continuing with the work already done is our preference. Rather than discussing it endlessly I'd propose a code talks approach. Having poked around a fair bit it looks to me like your model is to have new code worked on in a lab at jclouds-labs. Given the SDK vs REST API approach it would seem sensible to start this effort as a lab anyway. That is using a lab would give time for both code maturity and for the community to evaluate the approach. I also note that there is some existing work on Azure compute in https://github.com/jclouds/jclouds-labs/tree/master/azurecompute it would make sense to have our code in the repo so that those working on the two different implementations can avoid duplicating effort wherever possible and community members have access to both implementations in order to provide feedback. How do you want to proceed? Shall we go ahead and make the contribution via that repository? This will provide an early opportunity for feedback and code commentary. (NB both myself and Eduard Koller are ASF committers so the legal side of the process is clear, just asking about the community contribution process here in JClouds land) Ross
