Oops! Everywhere I said Samuel I meant Stephen. Sorry you both have SB as you initials so I got confused. :)
Cheers, --Jorge On 4/30/14 5:17 PM, "Jorge Miramontes" <jorge.miramon...@rackspace.com> wrote: >Hey everyone, > >I agree that we need to be preparing for the summit. Using Google docs >mixed with Openstack wiki works for me right now. I need to become more >familiar the gerrit process and I agree with Samuel that it is not >conducive to "large" design discussions. That being said I'd like to add >my thoughts on how I think we can most effectively get stuff done. > >As everyone knows there are many new players from across the industry that >have an interest in Neutron LBaaS. Companies I currently see >involved/interested are Mirantis, Blue Box Group, HP, PNNL, Citrix, >eBay/Paypal and Rackspace. We also have individuals involved as well. I >echo Kyle's sentiment on the passion everyone is bringing to the project! >Coming into this project a few months ago I saw that a few things needed >to be done. Most notably, I realized that gathering everyone's >expectations on what they wanted Neutron LBaaS to be was going to be >crucial. Hence, I created the requirements document. Written requirements >are important within a single organization. They are even more important >when multiple organizations are working together because everyone is >spread out across the world and every organization has a different >development process. Again, my goal with the requirements document is to >make sure that everyone's voice in the community is taken into >consideration. The benefit I've seen from this document is that we ask >"Why?" to each other, iterate on the document and in the end have a clear >understanding of everyone's motives. We also learn from each other by >doing this which is one of the great benefits of open source. > >Now that we have a set of requirements the next question to ask is, "How >doe we prioritize requirements so that we can start designing and >implementing them"? If this project were a completely new piece of >software I would argue that we iterate on individual features based on >anecdotal information. In essence I would argue an agile approach. >However, most of the companies involved have been operating LBaaS for a >while now. Rackspace, for example, has been operating LBaaS for the better >part of 4 years. We have a clear understanding of what features our >customers want and how to operate at scale. I believe other operators of >LBaaS have the same understanding of their customers and their operational >needs. I guess my main point is that, collectively, we have data to back >up which requirements we should be working on. That doesn't mean we >preclude requirements based on anecdotal information (i.e. "Our customers >are saying they want new shiny feature X"). At the end of the day I want >to prioritize the community's requirements based on factual data and >anecdotal information. > >Assuming requirements are prioritized (which as of today we have a pretty >good idea of these priorities) the next step is to design before laying >down any actual code. I agree with Samuel that pushing the cart before the >horse is a bad idea in this case (and it usually is the case in software >development), especially since we have a pretty clear idea on what we need >to be designing for. I understand that the current code base has been >worked on by many individuals and the work done thus far is the reason why >so many new faces are getting involved. However, we now have a completely >updated set of requirements that the community has put together and trying >to fit the requirements to existing code may or may not work. In my >experience, I would argue that 99% of the time duct-taping existing code >to fit in new requirements results in buggy software. That being said, I >usually don't like to rebuild a project from scratch. If I can I try to >refactor as much as possible first. However, in this case we have a >particular set of requirements that changes the game. Particularly, >operator requirements have not been given the attention they deserve. > >I think of Openstack as being cloud software that is meant to operate at >scale and have the necessary operator tools to do so. Otherwise, why do we >have so many companies interested in Openstack if you can't operate a >cloud that scales? In the case of LBaaS, user/feature requirements and >operator requirements are not necessarily mutually exclusive. How you >design the system in regards to one set of requirements affects the design >of the system in regards to the other set of requirements. SSL >termination, for example, affects the ability to scale since it is CPU >intensive. As an operator, I need to know how to provision load balancer >instances efficiently so that I'm not having to order new hardware more >than I have to. With this in mind, I am assuming that most of us are >vendor-agnostic and want to cooperate in developing an open source driver >while letting vendors create their own drivers. If this is not the case >then perhaps a lot of the debates we have been having are moot since we >can separate efforts depending on what driver we want to work on. The only >item of Neutron LBaaS that we need to have consensus on then is the API >(web app, database, messaging system, etc.). Keep in mind that the API >implies what feature/user requirements are satisfied, but no so much for >operator requirements. I think this is one reason why we have been working >on API proposals. Samuel, thank you for the time you spent on your >proposal as we know how much time and effort it takes. > >Because several of us have been spending large amounts of time on API >proposals, and because we can safely assume that most operational >requirements are abstracted into the driver layer I say we continue the >conversation around the different proposals since this is the area we >definitely need consensus on. So far there are three proposals--Stephen's, >Rackspace's and Eugene's. To date, we honestly haven't had an actual >discussion on the pros and cons of each proposal. To give structure to >this we here at Rackspace have been going to great lengths to make sure we >have enough tangible documentation in order to clearly convey our >thoughts. We also went to great lengths to satisfy the user/feature >requirements in our API. Here is what we have done: > >- An API specification located here ==> >https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mTfkkdnPAd4tWOMZAdwHEx7IuFZDULjG9bTmWy >X >e-zo/edit >- Single API call workflows & multiple API call workflows of each of the >use cases (#1 through #9 for now) from >https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ewl95yxAMq2fO0Z6Dz6fL-w2FScERQXQR1-mXu >S >INis/edit#heading=h.48fieovwttzg. Our workflows are located here ==> >https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B2r4apUP7uPwRVc2MzQ2MHNpcE0 >- A lightweight proof of concept that is in the works so that people that >need to actually send requests to an API to believe in it can do so. We >will send an update in a few days when this POC is complete. > >In order to fairly compare proposals I think it would be nice if each >proposal give workflows on how their API will operate. This is isn't >necessary but I think it will definitely give structure in any discussions >we have when comparing. If others have thoughts on how to compare the >proposals on equal footing then by all means speak up. > >Once we come to a consensus on the API then we can figure out how to make >iterative changes in order to get the API to the consensus state. That is >a separate conversation in my mind. First we need to agree on a spec >without the confines of looking at current implementation. > > >Cheers, >--Jorge > > >P.S. Sorry for the delay in responding to the ML. Just reading them takes >several hours. > > >_______________________________________________ >OpenStack-dev mailing list >OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org >http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev _______________________________________________ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev