OpenStack Conference – Agenda Highlights

 

August 31, 2011

The Program Committee is in its final stages of crafting the OpenStack Conference agenda and I wanted to share some highlights from the agenda to get you ready for next week’s formal agenda announcement…

Highlights:

  • Keynote Speakers from HP, Dell, Nebula, Canonical, NetApp, and NTT
  • User Case Studies from CERN and Acens Technologies (more being planned)
  • Panel Discussions on OpenStack Governance, OpenStack “Distributions”, and Service Providers
  • Business and Technical Sessions on all OpenStack Projects including the two new projects, Dashboard & Keystone

Be sure to register now for this gathering of OpenStack enthusiasts in Boston, MA from October 5-7, 2011

 

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Documentation Wrangling and Statistics Sharing

 

I’ve been tracking web analytics on the documentation site since we put it up in February, and I thought I’d share some of the more interesting nuggets of data I’ve mined. I believe the documentation statistics offer a crystal ball, a window showing the future of what’s up-and-coming for OpenStack. Let’s gaze together.

Flickr: pasukaru76

The docs.openstack.org site regularly tops 1,700 visits a day which is about 40,000 a month. Nearly 10% of visitors are site regulars, with 9-14 visits in a month, and new visitors account for over a third of the traffic. I find search and content analytics much more interesting than just site traffic, though.

At the top of the docs.openstack.org site is a custom search engine that searches the docs site, the wiki, and each developer doc sites (such as nova.openstack.org). The engine is fine-tuned to only show results for the Cactus release documents in docs.openstack.org/cactus so that there aren’t a lot of duplicates with docs.openstack.org/trunk. Yesterday I further expanded the custom search engine to include the documentation for projects in docs.openstack.org/incubation, namely Keystone, the Identity Service for OpenStack. As a result, you can more easily find Keystone API documentation and Keystone developer documentation. Hopefully it means those of you tweeting that you can’t find the Keystone docs while you’re out shopping with your family can now find them no matter your mobile circumstances!

Last month, the top search term for the docs.openstack.org site was Quantum, which revealed the need for our newly incubated project Quantum to add more documentation. Fortunately Dan Wendlandt is on the case and working on developer and administrator documentation now. Also, the custom search engine gives results on the OpenStack wiki for Quantum.

We also have a rather fancy implementation of custom Event Tracking so I can track search data when a reader searches within a particular manual. We have data starting with mid-June. Popular searches once someone’s within a manual are glance, dashboard, vlan, floating, and zone. Interestingly, terms like accounting and billing show up in both the individual guides search and on the main search. I can extrapolate a couple of items from this type of data:

  1. People recognize project names, and the Image Service (glance) docs are embedded within the Compute book for the Cactus release. For Diablo, the Image Service will have its own set of books.
  2. The Dashboard had been trending for a while, so I put the docs in the Compute books prior to its incubation. That looks to be a good decision still.
  3. Accounting or billing solutions don’t exist in the OpenStack ecosystem yet, but people are certainly searching for them.

Our custom event tracking tells us that we’re also getting about 100 comments a month using the Disqus tool, and users are answering other users, which is excellent, keep it up!

One additional tracking item that I find interesting is that downloading the PDF of the OpenStack Compute Admin Manual is in the top 10 exit pages. I think people get in, download what they need, and get out. PDF output is considerably more popular than I had realized. I guess a lot of people hop on a plane and read docs or want the manual at their bedside table to go to sleep with?

Hopefully this tracking doesn’t creep you out, because the data really can help me shape the future for OpenStack documentation. You can always opt out of these tracking devices, and I’m sure some of you do. Let me know if there are any other documentation insights you would like to know.

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Community Weekly Review (August 19-26)

 

August 26, 2011

OpenStack Community Newsletter – August 19, 2011

This weekly newsletter is a way for the community to learn about all the various activities occurring on a weekly basis. If you would like to add content to a weekly update or have an idea about this newsletter, please email [email protected].

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

GENERAL COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY STATISTICS (8/12– 8/18)

  • Data Tracking Graphs – http://wiki.openstack.org/WeeklyNewsletter
  • OpenStack Compute (NOVA) Data
    • 20 Active Reviews
    • 352 Active Branches – owned by 94 people & 18 teams
    • 3,351 commits by 78 people in last month
  • OpenStack Object Storage (SWIFT) Data
    • 4 Active Reviews
    • 79 Active Branches – owned by 26 people & 6 teams
    • 72 commits by 14 people in last month
  • OpenStack Image Registry (GLANCE) Data
  • Bugs Stats for Week: 788 Tracked Bugs; 101 New Bugs; 44 In-process Bugs; 15 Critical Bugs; 84 High Importance Bugs; 422 Bugs (Fix Committed)
  • Blueprints Stats for Week:  241 Blueprints; 4 Essential, 12 High, 18 Medium, 20 Low, 157 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week:  15,152 Visits, 37,386 Pageviews, 50.18 % New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages: Home 40.80%; /projects 12.94%; /projects/compute 16.28%; /projects/storage 9.78%; /community 5.99%

OpenStack Governance Elections – Voting started

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OpenStack Design Summit & Conference – Register Now!

 

The OpenStack community is once again in full preparation for our twice annual community events, this time in Boston, Ma in October.  There are two different (but related) events during the week of October 3rd-7th:  At the beginning of the week, we have the OpenStack Design Summit which is a set of small, focused developer working sessions where the roadmap will be set by active contributors on the project.  Later in the week, the broader community of Users, Developers, and Business folk will gather for the OpenStack Conference.  Those of you who attended the events in April may notice that, this time, we’ve reversed the order.  This will allow the broader community to hear and discuss the output of the Design Summit.

To better understand which event is right for you, here are some additional details:

OpenStack Design Summit – Held October 3 – 5, 2011, this event is targeted at OpenStack developers and architects to collaborate on the features, designs, and development methodology for the Essex product release. Developers submit their feature ideas for Essex via the Launchpad blueprint process and the three Project Technical Leads work with the Release Manager to create the final agenda. It is highly recommended that only OpenStack developers or architects attend as the sessions are extremely technical and focused on individual features for Essex. Registration for this group of attendees will be handled via launchpad accounts. The developer registration process will also offer you the option to indicate that you intend to stay for the Conference portion of the week, so you will NOT need to go to two places to register if you are attending both events.  In fact:  Please don’t!

OpenStack Conference –  Held October 5 – 7, 2011, this event is targeted at the broader OpenStack community including ecosystem companies, system administrators, users, and business executives interested in the OpenStack open source project. Senior executive leaders in the cloud computing marketplace present their ideas on the future of the industry and OpenStack’s influence in the general sessions along with a business track and technical track containing information for attendees on how OpenStack works and why OpenStack matters. The OpenStack community welcomes all attendees interested in cloud computing and open source to this event to learn about the OpenStack project and become an active part of the community. Click here to register for the Conference.

Click here to book your room at the Boston Intercontinental hotel (where the events are located) at a discount rate.  We have a block of rooms, so please use the link to ensure they are tracked appropriately.  The special rate is substantially cheaper than the normal rate, and is only guaranteed if you book by September 9th.

If you have any further questions on these two events, please contact Stephen Spector for more information.

 

OpenStack Governance Elections – Voting started

 

August 25, 2011

Today at 12:00pm CDT the election process for the OpenStack has started.  The approved candidates for the Project Policy Board are:

  • Joe Heck
  • Soren Hansen
  • Rick Clark
  • Jason Cannavale
  • Christopher MacGown
  • Paul Voccio
  • Joe Arnold
  • Blake Yeager
  • Ewan Mellor
  • Brian Lamar
  • Monty Taylor
  • Josh Kearney
  • Chuck Thier
  • Rob Hirschfeld

The poll is currently running to elect the three new members and the replacement for Eric Day. If you are eligible to vote and have requested to be added to the official list of voters you should have received an email with instructions to cast your vote for the Project Policy Board (PPB). Poll will close on September 4th, 12pm CDT.

For the Team Lead positions in Nova, Swift and Glance projects no poll was necessary since we had only one candidate for each position. The Team Leads therefore are:

  • NOVA Project Technical Lead:  Vishvananda Ishaya
  • SWIFT Project Technical Lead:  John Dickinson
  • GLANCE Project Technical Lead: Jay Pipes

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OpenStack Events in September

 

The OpenStack community has two confirmed events next month to book on your calendars (and a third in final confirmation)…

Paris, France

 

 

 

 

 

OpenStack in Action!
September 21, 2011 from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm
Current Sponsors: Enovance, UShareSoft, Canonical, Rackspace, and OW2
Event Registration: https://openstackinaction.eventbrite.com/

Boston, MA

 

 

 

 

 

Boston OpenStack User Group
September 21 from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Sponsor: Fidelity
Event Registration: http://bostonopenstack.eventbrite.com

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OpenStack Governance Elections – Voting Process

 

August 22, 2011

This Wednesday at Noon CST, the OpenStack Governance Elections Nominations process will close and all approved candidates will be entered into the Election Tool.  Elections will run from August 25 – September 4 at Noon CST.

Elections

The following four separate votes will be conducted during this election cycle:

  • NOVA Project Team Lead (1 Position)
  • SWIFT Project Team Lead (1 Position)
  • GLANCE Project Team Lead (1 Position)
  • Project Policy Board (3 Open Seats)

In addition, Eric Day has resigned his seat on the PPB with a term ending Spring 2012. To fill his seat for the next 6 months, the 4th place vote getter in the Project Policy Board election will replace Eric and complete his term. This process change simplifies having to run a special election for his seat. Please contact me if you have any questions on this process for replacing Eric on the board.

Voter Eligibility

Each election has a separate policy for who can vote in the election. A complete review of this process can be found at http://www.openstack.org/blog/2011/08/openstack-governance-elections-coming-soon/. To be eligible to vote, please ensure that you meet these requirements by Noon CST on Wednesday August 25th.

Candidates

The current list of nominees is available at http://etherpad.openstack.org/Fall2011-Nominees.  If you are interested in being a nominee, please add yourself by Wednesday August 25th by Noon CST at which time nominations will close.

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Community Weekly Review (August 12 – 19)

 

August 19, 2011

OpenStack Community Newsletter – August 19, 2011

This weekly newsletter is a way for the community to learn about all the various activities occurring on a weekly basis. If you would like to add content to a weekly update or have an idea about this newsletter, please email [email protected].

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS

  • China OpenStack Launch – September 6 in Shanghai, China – In Active Development
  • Ohio LinuxFest 2011 – September 9-11, 2011 in Columbus, OH – http://www.ohiolinux.org/
  • PyTexas 2011 – September 10-11, 2011 in College Station, Texas http://pytexas.org/PyTexas2011
  • OpenStack Conference – Boston, MA – October 5-7, 2011

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

GENERAL COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY STATISTICS (8/12– 8/18)

  • Data Tracking Graphs – http://wiki.openstack.org/WeeklyNewsletter
  • OpenStack Compute (NOVA) Data
    • 22 Active Reviews
    • 335 Active Branches – owned by 88 people & 16 teams
    • 4,004 commits by 82 people in last month
  • OpenStack Object Storage (SWIFT) Data
    • 3 Active Reviews
    • 76 Active Branches – owned by 24 people & 6 teams
    • 82 commits by 15 people in last month
  • OpenStack Image Registry (GLANCE) Data
  • Twitter Stats for Week:  #openstack 306 total tweets; OpenStack 1012 total tweets  (does not include RT)
  • Bugs Stats for Week: 745 Tracked Bugs; 97 New Bugs; 33 In-process Bugs; 12 Critical Bugs; 74 High Importance Bugs; 529 Bugs (Fix Committed)
  • Blueprints Stats for Week:  225 Blueprints; 6 Essential, 14 High, 23 Medium, 25 Low, 157 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week:  14,728 Visits, 35,737 Pageviews, 51.09 % New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages: Home 41.13%; /projects 13.06%; /projects/compute 16.21%; /projects/storage 10.00%; /imageserver 6.15%

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Evolving Roles, Welcome Stefano Maffulli to the Community

 

August 17, 2011

The explosion of OpenStack over the past year has once again highlighted the significant impact that an open source community can have on an industry. Within a single year, over 100 participating companies and 1,300 community members have joined together to create the de-facto open source cloud computing standard. With this enormous growth comes a broad array of possible work opportunities that are unique in challenge and scope, and I have decided to move on from being your Community Manager to take up new projects within OpenStack. It has been a pleasure for me professionally and personally to have participated in this community as your Community Manager, and I thank you for your amazing support and efforts in driving OpenStack forward. I look forward to its continued success and welcome Stefano Maffulli as your Community Manager.

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Developer Weekly (August 12)

 

August 12, 2011

Many people have asked for more insight into the developer activities for OpenStack as the large number of code changes and proposals make it difficult to monitor everything happening. In hopes of exposing more of the developer activities, I plan to post a weekly or biweekly blog post on the latest development activities. If you have any ideas for this blog post, please email me at [email protected]. I am always ready to listen to the community for new ideas.

Activities

Developer Mailing List (archive: https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/)

This is select list of topics discussed this week in the developer mailing list and is not a complete list.  Please visit the archive to see all the topics.

  • Tenants and Service Relationship… – Liem Manh Ngueyn asks “can I have a tenant associated with the “swift” service in Region X and another “swift” service in Region Y?” Yogeshwar Srikrishnan replies that Keystone would have different endpoint_template for each of those regions and provides and example.
  • Monitoring RabbitMQ Messages – Joshua Harlow asks if there is a tool to see all the messages passing thru rabbitmq. Craig Vyvial suggested changing the config options for rabbitmq (http://www.rabbitmq.com/management.html#configuration). Narayan Desai suggested using rabbitmqctl list_queues to see what the queue depth for each NOVA service was.
  • Problems connecting Dashboard and Nova – Mauricio Arango submitted the error information when the Dashboard fails to connect to Nova. Several developers offered various ideas to solve the problem – Mark Gius, Rafael Duran Castaneda, Joseph Heck, Arvind Somya, Vand ish Ishaya . The complete flow of ideas and responses is at https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg03456.html.

Statistics

For the latest on development activities on OpenStack please check these sites for more details:

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