OpenStack Developer Activity Review (February 28 – March 4)

 

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.

  • Authn Authz Proposal – Vish Ishaya posted information on a prototype solution for Authentication (authn) and Authorization (authz) at http://plansthis.com/auth. Instructions for the prototype are included.
  • Gzip Compression – Brian Lamer has implemented a simple WSGI implementation of gzip compression however it does not support streaming and he is opening a discussion on how best to move forward. Several developers responded but the overall consensus is to allow a tool such as Nginx/Apache/etc to handle this outside of the system as Glance does. Jorge Williams suggested that Brian submit the code anyway as someone may find another use for it.
  • Multiple Versions in OpenStack API – Brian Waldon asked about the plan to support both OpenStack API 1.0 and 1.1 as the Versions WSGI application seems to be able to deploy multiple versions of the OS API within the same codebase.  Several developers including Eric Day, Ewan Mellor, and Sandy Walsh responded to this question; more information at https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg01187.html.
  • OS API server password generation – Dan Price announced a blueprint on adding support for password generation when creating services and asked for feedback. Blueprint – https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/openstack-api-server-passwords; Details – http://etherpad.openstack.org/openstack-api-server-passwords.  Further discussion from Ed Leafe, Justin Santa Barbara, Mark Washenberger, Scott Moser, George Reese, and Rick Clark can be followed at https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg01175.html.
  • Management API – Glen Campbell has created a preliminary proposal for admin/management API for Nova at http://wiki.openstack.org/NovaAdminAPI. Glen’s focus is to determine the features required for Rackspace, which may or may not be needed by the community.

Statistics

  • Number of OpenStack Developers on Contributors List – 153 (+2 for week)
  • Cactus Release Status – Blueprints (http://wiki.openstack.org/releasestatus/)
    • Essential – 5 Design Approved; 1 Implemented – 1 Needs Code Review – 1 Beta Available
    • High – 12 Blueprints; 3 Implemented – 1 Needs Code Review – 1 Blocked
    • Medium – 21 Blueprints; 2 Needs Code Review; 3 Implemented
    • Low – 16 Blueprints; 1 Needs Code Review; 6 Implemented

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

Tags:

Community Weekly Newsletter (February 28 – March 4)

 

OpenStack Community Newsletter – March 4, 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].

Midokura booth at Cloud Days in Tokyo

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

GENERAL COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY STATISTICS (2/25– 3/3)

  • Data Tracking Graphs – http://wiki.openstack.org/WeeklyNewsletter
  • OpenStack Compute (NOVA) Data
    • 27 Active Reviews
    • 166 Active Branches – owned by 49 people & 10 teams
    • 1,849 commits by 62 people in last month
  • OpenStack Object Storage (SWIFT) Data
    • 3 Active Reviews
    • 48 Active Branches – owned by 19 people & 4 teams
    • 215 commits by 11 people in last month
  • Twitter Stats for Week:  #openstack  tweets;  re-tweets; all OpenStack total tweets  ** Looking for new tool to gather this data **
  • Bugs Stats for Week:  277  Tracked Bugs; 44 New Bugs; 33 In-process Bugs; 6  Critical Bugs; 30 High Importance Bugs; 106 Bugs (Fix Committed)
  • Blueprints Stats for Week:  165 Blueprints; 8 Essential, 15 High, 26 Medium, 22 Low, 94 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week: 8,791 Visits, 19,315  Pageviews, 53.16% New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages: Home 43.24%; /projects 11.34%; /projects/compute 16.86%; /projects/storage 11.38%; /Community 7.21%

OPENSTACK IN THE NEWS

Tags:

OpenStack Governance Update

 

March 3, 2011

We’ve built quite an open source community together since we launched less than eight months ago!  What started as a small group of people committed to building an open cloud standard, has grown to hundreds of developers and more than 50 participating organizations virtually overnight.  From the beginning, this community was founded with the goal of diversity of participation and a firm commitment to what we call “the 4 opens”:  Open Source, Open Design, Open Development and Open Community.

As we take stock of the amazing interest and growth, keeping in mind the initiative’s goals and commitment to openness, the time has come to evolve the governance process to match the new reality of a larger, more diverse community.  To that end, the governance process has been updated, with full details published here.

As you read through the highlights below, we encourage you to get personally involved to steer this community to an even bigger, brighter future.  Whether it’s participating in a spirited debate on the mailing list, attending the bi-annual design summits, or even running for one of the elected positions, there are a lot of ways to get involved and there’s no time like the present to dive in.  Nominations and elections will be held later this month for many elected positions.

Highlights:

  • Each Project — OpenStack Compute (Nova), OpenStack Object Storage (Swift), and the OpenStack image service (Glance) will elect their own Project Technical Leads (starting later this month, March 2011) to run the projects and make day-to-day technical decisions.  Elections will be held every six months, just prior to each design summit, and these elected leaders will be instrumental in guiding those public design summits and setting the future direction of their project.
  • The Project Oversight Committee – which has been charged with setting policies that span projects as well as determining when new projects should be added – will be renamed the Project Policy Board effective immediately, to better reflect their mission.
  • This Project Policy Board will be revamped to become more nimble and ensure broad representation.  Specifically, 2/3 of the seats on the board will now be elected rather than appointed by Rackspace:
    • 5 General Board Seats elected to one-year terms, with elections occurring prior to each design summit (2 each spring*, 3 each Fall)
    • 3 Board Seats reserved for the winners of the Project Technical Lead elections* (more as we add projects)
    • 4 seats appointed by Rackspace
  • We are establishing an OpenStack Advisory Board of senior advisors comprised of major commercial sponsors (those who are building businesses on OpenStack), enterprises and service providers who are deploying it, and category experts.  The primary function of this body is to provide guidance on OpenStack’s mission, and to evangelize on its behalf.  Prior to the Spring 2011 Design Summit, Rackspace will appoint the initial members from a variety of organizations – but the board will then determine its own plans and requirements for expansion.

*Upcoming Elections:  As noted above, a total of 5 seats are up for election later this month, March 2011, prior to the Spring 2011 Design Summit.  3 of these will be Project Technical Leads for the respective projects, and will also sit on the Project Policy Board representing those respective communities, and 2 will be General Board Members.  More details soon regarding the nomination and election process.

Again, we invite everyone to get involved and have your voice heard.  If you’re interested in running for the Project Policy Board, or becoming a Project Technical Leader, now’s the time to throw your hat in the ring.  Registration for the second public Design Summit will open in the next few days, in which members of the community set the roadmap and make technical decisions to drive the projects forward.  You can get plugged in with our new community page at openstack.org/community.

Building the Complete Open Source Cloud with Xen.org and OpenStack

 

The Xen.org community, home of the open source Xen hypervisor, announced today the availability of Xen Cloud Platform (XCP) 1.0.  XCP 1.0 provides a full-featured virtualization platform solution from bare metal including the Xen hypervisor, network and storage support, and a management stack. This platform is a perfect complement to the OpenStack cloud infrastructure solution by providing the virtualization layer for a complete open source cloud stack from bare metal to cloud orchestration software.

The release of XCP 1.0 enables the Xen community to leverage the industry leading Xen hypervisor in creating a virtualization platform for the OpenStack community. Citrix Systems, a leader in the OpenStack and Xen communities, enabled not just the Xen hypervisor but also tightly integrated XCP 1.0 with OpenStack Compute and OpenStack Object Storage. This newly available joint solution provides solution providers building public and private clouds an opportunity to fully deploy a complete open source solution for their customers and employees.

Not only are the two communities actively working together to ensure a quality customer solution, but Xen.org is also taking a leading role in the governance of OpenStack with Ewan Mellor participating as a member of the OpenStack Project Oversight Committee. Ewan’s leadership role in OpenStack provides the community with an experienced open source and enterprise developer helping to guide the technology and development process.

Finally, the two projects have also submitted a joint paper proposal for OSCON 2011; “Achieving Hybrid Cloud Mobility with OpenStack and XCP” from Paul Voccio at Rackspace and Todd Deshane at Xen.org. The connection between these two open source communities is off to a great start and we look forward to more alignment in the future as open source cloud computing becomes a significant player in the industry.

You can obtain XCP 1.0 here.

Tags:

OpenStack Party at SXSW in Austin, TX

 

Join Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, and OpenStack, the fastest growing open source cloud project creating the open standard cloud operating system, for some fun and arcade games! We hope to see you there, free food and drinks for all!

Kung Fu Saloon
510 Rio Grande
March 16, 2011
6pm

More information at http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_OE00338.

Tags: