The OpenStack Blog Everything in & around OpenStack in written words.

This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun. If you’re interested in being featured, please choose five questions from this form and submit!

After ten years as a system administrator in a university data center, Ghe joined StackOps in early 2012 to work on a solution for managing your own clouds and those of third parties effortlessly with OpenStack. His first contributions to OpenStack can be traced back to 2011 in neutron project (quantum, by then) and working on the OpenStack Debian packaging team. After that, in late 2012, he became part of HP as a cloud automation and distribution engineer mainly focused in TripleO and Ironic projects. He works from home in Salamanca, Spain, and loves outdoor activities like hiking and cycling, photography and traveling. You can get in touch with him on Twitter at @GheRivero.

1) What drew you to OpenStack?

I first met OpenStack during a virtualization project for some web services. Plain virtualization was ok, but didn’t fulfill all of my desires. So while looking for cloud solutions, OpenStack crossed my path and I fell in love with it. It was free, open and having the backup of great companies was a plus. But what really caught my attention was a growing community willing to welcome new developers. The OpenStack community is one the most enthusiastic I’ve ever met, with all of us working for different companies and collaborating.

2) Where is your favorite place to code? In the office, at a local coffee shop, in bed?

It all depends on the task I’m dealing with. I love coding by night in my standing desk at home, but in office hours, I really like going to an old library. The silence and calm of the place help me to focus and forget about almost everything. I almost get locked in a couple of times because I lost track of time!

3) What does “open source” mean to you?

It’s the best place to start working on a project, be recognized for your efforts, work in community and share your knowledge and ideas. What I really like about is that in spite of it starting as a computer movement, it has spread to many others places. We can start talking about open culture, with the copyleft and creative commons licenses, open data, Wikipedia and all kind of siblings, and even open democracy with the Iceland’s new crowd-sourced constitution. Openness is everywhere, and the right way to do things. I can’t imagine where we’d be by now if someone would have patented the fire and started charging for it when it was discovered.

4) How did you learn to code? Are you self-taught or did you lear in college? On-the-job?

I learned some basic coding skills in college, but in my previous job as a sysadmin I was not very fond of that and tried to avoid it, and delegated as much as possible. After some pitfalls, I decided to take matters into my own hands and start working on some free software projects (GNOME desktop and Debian) and start learning not only about coding but also about community.

5) What new OpenStack projects do you think will have a significant impact on the cloud market in the next year?

OpenStack is a pretty mature project despite being only three years old, so the core functionality is the keystone for a growing ecosystem around it, but it’s getting more and more complicated to be installed and operated, so projects like TripleO and Ironic will have a great impact during the next year.

This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun. 

Derek works on OpenStack for Red Hat from his home in the west of Ireland. These days, you’ll find him working on TripleO mainly
contributing to the TripleO CI set-up. When he is not busy keeping his 3 year old and 10 month old out of trouble, Derek volunteers for an ambulance service as a qualified EMT.

When approaching a problem Derek usually jumps in feet first with his eyes closed, and when he finds himself tangled up in the weeds he’ll get out and jump in again somewhere else.

You can follow him on Twitter at @bethehokie.

1. What new OpenStack projects do you think will have a significant impact on the cloud market in the next year?

The one I’m working on of course, a reference deployment of OpenStack, is something that we’ve been missing in the community up until now. TripleO is putting a lot of effort into getting that right. Up until now, operators have been left to their own devices when it comes to deciding how they will deploy OpenStack, but having the option of picking a solution that is fully integrated with the upstream development process will make their choice a lot easier.

2. How did you learn to code? Are you self-taught or did you lear in college? On-the-job?

On my first day in college a lecturer walked in and asked people who knew what a programming language was to put their hands up. I was one of the people with both hands by my side. I quickly learned pascal and x86 assembly, before moving onto C and C++. After college I started coding in python, and besides the occasional adventure into other languages as needed I’ve pretty much stayed in the python world.

3. Where is your favorite place to code? In the office, at a local coffee shop, in bed?

I usually work from an office at home but most weeks I travel across the country to Dublin for a day to work with some of the other Irish based Red Hat engineers. I enjoy this time to touch base with colleagues and learn a little about what they’re working on.

4. What publications, blogs, mailing lists, etc do you read every day?

I don’t really follow any specific blogs, instead I rely on the people/feeds I follow on twitter to draw my attention to interesting stuff. I do read lwn.net weekly and find it an excellent source of the current news in the free software world.

5. What drew you to OpenStack?

When the opportunity came up to work on OpenStack I jumped at it. Red Hat was only starting to get involved in OpenStack at the time so there was lots of opportunities to explore the areas that I was most interested in. Since then, there has been no end of new problems being tackled by the community providing an endless stream of interesting projects to get involved in.

This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun. 

Paul Michali is a Technical Lead on the OpenStack team at Cisco. Although new to OpenStack (started in 2013), Paul has been a software developer for over 30 years working at various companies and industries. His current focus is on VPNaaS, and he has been trying to drink from the fire hose for all things Neutron. An empty-nester, he lives in New Hampshire, USA, with his wife and pets. Outside of work, Paul enjoys photography, playing soccer and volleyball, watching sci-fi and action movies on his home theater, and playing on the skid pad with his BMW. Follow him on Twitter @pmichali

2. What publications, blogs, mailing lists, etc. do you read every day?

Besides reading the OpenStack developer mailing list (well, ok, maybe I just browse it 🙂 ), I like browsing through StackExchange areas StackOverflow, Super User, Ask Ubuntu, Ask Different (Mac), Programmers, Unix & Linux, and Photography on a daily basis. For leisure reading, I try to get some news and info via Twitter feeds, and I visit Lifehacker.com daily.

3. What behavior has helped get you the furthest as a developer?

Probably the best thing that helps me grow as a developer, is the desire to constantly learn new things. I try to read a technical book every month or two, am constantly seeking new techniques, methods, and processes that I can apply, and help people as much as I can. I’m frequently humbled by how much one can learn by reviewing other peoples’ code, and by explaining things to others. It helps solidify one’s knowledge and tests past assumptions and learning.

4. How did you learn to code? Are you self-taught or did you learn in college? On-the-job?

A mixture. Initially, I was self taught. When we got an ASR-33 Teletype connected to a school computer (don’t ask how long ago that was) in high school, I started writing small BASIC programs during free time. The infection took hold, and by the time I was a senior in high school, I had a part time job, at the first personal computer store in my home town, selling computers and writing small custom business apps for small companies in the area.

By then, I clearly knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, and couldn’t wait to get my own pocket protector (yes, I did get one in my first “real” job). I went to college and learned a ton, filling my head with several languages. From there, I started working, and pretty much in each job I’ve had to learn a new language: microcode, Pascal, C, Java, Perl, and for OpenStack, Python.

5. How did you first get involved in OpenStack?

At the very end of 2012, the whole group I was in had completed a major project and had handed off the reins to another development team. As a next assignment, we were offered two different projects, one of them joining the OpenStack team, of which there was a very limited number of openings. It would be a leap of faith for me, to work in a new area (cloud computing), with a new language (Python), using a new process (open source/community based), and as part of another organization in the company.

I had toyed with Python a bit before, writing some tool scripts, and was intrigued by the language. The thought that I could move away from a more traditional development process using C, and into a much more iterative and incremental process with Python, encouraged me to jump at the opportunity and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been the happiest time for me in my career.