OpenStack Project Oversight Committee

 

January 27, 2011

The OpenStack Project Oversight Committee (POC) was formed at the end of last year. The committee is a mixture of appointed and community elected members who fill nine seats. The current members are Jesse Andrews, Jonathan Bryce, Rick Clark, Soren Hansen, Mark Interrante, Vish Ishaya, Joshua McKenty, Ewan Mellor and Chuck Thier. One of the responsibilities of the POC is to approve policies for the operation of OpenStack sub-projects.

As Rick mentioned in this week’s release meeting, one policy has just been approved–a procedure for adding developers to core teams. This was a policy that was proposed to the general OpenStack mailing list for open discussion. After a period of time, the POC then took up discussion of the issue and voted to adopt the proposal. John Purrier has followed a similar process for a number of proposals and the POC is currently considering two.

The majority of POC discussion and voting has happened on a Launchpad group mailing list. Archives are publicly available and anyone interested in reviewing the detailed discussion can view the threads here: https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack-poc/

In addition, the POC will be holding regular IRC meetings, and the logs and minutes of those meetings will be available as well. A summary of POC activity and links to relevant information will be available on the OpenStack wiki: http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/POC

In the last six months, OpenStack has grown and matured, and we have heard a lot of great feedback on the governance model. As the year progresses, I expect that we will continue to refine and improve our governance processes and models. If you have feedback, suggestions, or questions, please share them with me ([email protected]).

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OpenStack Meetup and Open Bar in California

 

January 26, 2011

OpenStack Meetup & Open Bar
Feb 3, 2011
6:00 – 9:00 pm
Hyatt Santa Clara Convention Center
Second Level Mezzanine

Join OpenStack contributors, users, and backers to celebrate the second release of the fastest-growing open source cloud platform, code-named Bexar.  There will be a community Meetup with speakers from 6:00 – 7:00 pm, followed by an open bar from 7:00 – 9:00 pm.

At the Meetup, Jim Curry, VP of OpenStack for Rackspace, and Jonathan Bryce, chair of the OpenStack Project Oversight Committee, will kick things off with a quick progress report and overview of key features in the Bexar release, scheduled to be available February 3.  Then we’ll mix things up with a series of five-minute lightning talks from various community members.  Confirmed speakers include:

  • Jesse Andrews, co-founder and CEO, Anso Labs
  • Victoria Livschitz, founder and CEO, Grid Dynamics
  • Anne Gentle, Content Stacker, OpenStack
  • Rob Hirschfeld, Principle Cloud Solution Architect, Dell
  • Chiradeep Vittal, Chief Architect, Cloud.com
  • Cloudscaling

RSVP http://openstack.eventbrite.com/

About OpenStack

OpenStack is a collection of open source technologies delivering a massively scalable cloud operating system. Founded with source code from Rackspace and NASA, and with more than 40 corporate sponsors, OpenStack is currently developing two interrelated projects: OpenStack Compute and OpenStack Object Storage. OpenStack Compute is software to provision and manage large groups of virtual private servers, and OpenStack Object Storage is software for creating redundant, scalable object storage using clusters of servers to store terabytes or even petabytes of data.

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OpenStack Developer Activity Review (Jan 14 – 21)

 

January 21, 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/)

  • Can ec2-api-tools maintain OpenStack Nova? –  Kenji Funasaki asked if it is possible to get image information by using ec2-describe-images functions within the EC2-API-TOOLS? Soren Hansen and Masanori ITOH responded that ec2 api tools use the SOAP based API for EC2 which are in development for the Cactus release in April.
  • Windows/Hyper-V – Jordan Rinke inquired about Hyper-V running on NOVA and was looking for more information; Chiradeep Vittal supplied a wiki page http://wiki.openstack.org/HypervInstall.
  • New Config File for Nova-API – Armando Migliaccio asked about the new way of configuring nova-api as the old glags style has been replaced by past.deploy style.  Jay Pipes, Andy Smith, and Anne Gentle responded on the need to improve documentation in this area; Armando did respond that flags and paste.deploy don’t configure the same things and he had confusion from the way he as using –flagfile=nova-api.conf.
  • Live Migration Branch Status – Thierry Carrez posted information on the decision to delay the release of this code from Bexar to Cactus. Masumotok confirmed this decision.
  • Deprecating nova-objectstore – Thierry Carrez posted information on the long term plan to remove the objectstore post Bexar and leverage Glance. Further discussion on the technical method to achieve this is discussed in the email thread…

Statistics

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

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OpenStack Weekly Newsletter (January 14 – 21)

 

OpenStack Community Newsletter – January 21, 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 (1/14– 1/20)

  • Data Tracking Graphs – http://wiki.openstack.org/WeeklyNewsletter
  • OpenStack Compute (NOVA) Data
    • 12 Active Reviews
    • 113 Active Branches – owned by 36 people & 6 teams
    • 1,161 commits by 62 people in last month
  • OpenStack Object Storage (SWIFT) Data
    • 4 Active Reviews
    • 45 Active Branches – owned by 21 people & 2 teams
    • 247 commits by 15 people in last month
  • Twitter Stats for Week:  #openstack 83 tweets; 57 re-tweets; all OpenStack total tweets 857
  • Bugs Stats for Week:  275 Tracked Bugs; 55 New Bugs; 24 In-process Bugs; 8 Critical Bugs; 37 High Importance Bugs; 100 Bugs (Fix Committed)
  • Blueprints Stats for Week:  128 Blueprints; 2 Essential, 5 High, 13 Medium, 11 Low, 97 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week:  8,123 Visits, 18,048 Pageviews, 62.61% New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages: Home 42.93%; /projects 11.54%; /projects/compute 17.83%; /projects/storage 12.85%; /Community 5.95%

OPENSTACK IN THE NEWS

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OpenStack Conference / Design Summit High Level Agenda

 

January 19, 2011

The OpenStack Conference/Design Summit planning is well underway with the Program Committee and I wanted to share our latest high level agenda with the community for feedback. The plan is to update this proposal over the next two weeks before starting a call for topics and speakers. Please send your comments directly to me so I can pass them along to the Program Committee.

Also, the number of sessions and times are subject to change; however, it is easier to view the agenda with sample sessions and times.

Here is the current proposal:

OpenStack Conference Agenda (April 26 – 27, 2011)

DAY1

GENERAL SESSION

9 – 9:30                               Welcome & OpenStack Vision
9:30 – 10:00                        OpenStack – where we are
10:00 – 10:45                       Keynote #1
10:45 – 11:00                       BREAK
11:00 – 11:45                       Keynote #2

11:45 – 1:00              LUNCH

COMMUNITY TRACK

This track allows the community to focus on critical issues related to development processes and plans, management and oversight as well as business planning. All community members are welcome to participate as the community moves from its infancy to a young and substantial open source project.

1:00 – 1:45
1:45 – 2:30
2:30 – 3:00                BREAK
3:00 – 3:45
3:45 – 4:30

TECHNICAL TRACK

This track focuses on various technology issues related to OpenStack and cloud computing in general.  These sessions are not meant to focus on upcoming features for the projects; we have blueprint sessions for that.

1:00 – 1:45
1:45 – 2:30
2:30 – 3:00                BREAK
3:00 – 3:45
3:45 – 4:30
6:00 – 9:00                Evening Reception

DAY2

USER TRACK

This track provides OpenStack users the opportunity to learn first hand how OpenStack meets their business needs and delivers the open standard cloud computing solution for the marketplace.

9:00 – 9:45
9:45 – 10:30
10:30 – 11:00
11:00 – 12:00
12:00 – 1:00              Lunch

ECOSYSTEM TRACK

This track lays out the foundation for the OpenStack partner ecosystem providing partners an exclusive roadmap for future development activities and revenue opportunities.  Existing partners providing information on their ecosystem development offers business development managers a chance to learn and improve their own OpenStack ecosystem engagement.

1:00 – 1:45                OpenStack Ecosystem Overview
1:45 – 2:30
2:30 – 3:00                BREAK
3:00 – 3:45
3:45 – 4:30
5:00 – 6:00                Guest Speaker

7:30 – LATE               Unofficial Pub Crawl in Palo Alto

OpenStack Design Summit Agenda (April 27 – 29, 2011)

Day 1

9:00 – 9:30                Welcome and Overview

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

9:30 – 12:00

12:00 – 1:00              Lunch

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

1:00 – 4:50

5:00 – 6:00                Guest Speaker

7:30 – LATE               Unofficial Pub Crawl in Palo Alto

Day 2

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

9:00 – 12:00

12:00 – 1:00              Lunch

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

1:00 – 6:00

7:00 – 10:00              Developer Party – TBD

Day 3

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

9:00 – 12:00

12:00 – 1:00              Lunch

BLUEPRINT SESSIONS / HACKFEST

1:00 – 4:30

Lighting Talks

4:30  – 6:00               Open

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OpenStack at Six Months

 

I am a relatively new father to an almost 2-year-old boy.  I am very familiar with the unexpectedly fast pace of growth for a baby.  How the milestones fly by.  How I like to think about where he will be in 3, 5, and 80 years.  It’s ironic that OpenStack and my son aren’t far apart.  They both seem hellbent on world domination.  And man it’s fun to be involved!

I have been involved with OpenStack since it was a twinkle in Rackspace’s eye.  We often joke about how hard it was to convince our management and board to give away the core set of assets in which we invested so much.  In truth, it wasn’t that hard.  We have always known our core asset was really Fanatical Support, the service we provide on top of the best technology offerings in the market.  There was no need for us to own the technology.  We just needed access to the best.  It needed to be an industry standard.  And it needed to meet the requirements of our customers.  The problem was that did not exist in the cloud software space.  So it made clear sense to for us to take the lead.

The real question was whether or not the world saw the problem we did.  Would they care?  More importantly, would they join?

The answer:  It’s too early to say yes, but this baby does seem to be headed toward the gifted and talented program.  Here are some facts:

  • We now have approximately 130 registered developers on the project,  about 25 from Rackspace, and well over 150 developers consistently in our IRC channel.
  • Over 1,000 individuals are actively participating in the project in some way.
  • In just the last month, 78 different people submitted code, and we’ve had nearly 1,500 commits.
  • We had our first commercial deployment outside of Rackspace and NASA…and more are coming.
  • Over 40 companies have joined the project and are hiring, contribution, promoting and using OpenStack.
  • Black Duck named OpenStack the #2 open source project launched last year

And we are achieving our roadmap goals very quickly.   Object Storage (Swift) is ready for prime time and is being adopted quickly.  The Austin release of Compute (Nova) brought us a preview, Bexar will be enterprise-ready and Cactus launches service provider scale.  We are getting many great ideas for the community on how to move even faster.  It’s clear the world wants an open alternative to the likes of Amazon and VMware.  And they are pushing this baby to grow up fast.

We have a long way to go, and undoubtedly there will be rough spots as there are with any growing baby.  But it’s amazing to see how many people want to parent OpenStack into adulthood.  We are very appreciative of your commitment to the cause, and humbled to be a part of it.

Just imagine what this baby could be doing in 10 years.

Jim Curry
@jimcurry

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OpenStack Developer Activity Review

 

January 14, 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/)

  • Feature Freeze Branches Needing Review – Thierry presented a list of branches needing review in priority order by project at https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg00269.html.  Nova had 14 branches for review; Glance had 1 branch; Swift had 1 branch. A discussion about the process to review branches by developers across projects is planned to find a better way to reduce the high number of un-reviewed branches in Nova for future releases.
  • Lazy Import of Modules – Ewan Mellor opened an issue about creating a standard methodology for loading modules on demand to eliminate unnecessary dependencies for un-needed modules. Responses from Jay Pipes, Vishvananda Ishaya, Devin Carlen, and Andy Smith discussed several solutions but it appears that the idea from Andy Smith will move forward at this time (see https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg00281.html)
  • Nova Translators – Jay Pipes announced that Monty Taylor and himself have completed the support for i18n in Nova and language translation has begun for NOVA into Austrian, Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Ukranian. If you are interested in assisting with another language please go to https://translations.launchpad.net/nova/trunk/+pots/nova.
    • Other Languages underway include Brazilian Portuguese

Statistics

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

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OpenStack Weekly Newsletter (January 7 – 14)

 

OpenStack Community Newsletter – January 14, 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]rg.

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

GENERAL COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY STATISTICS (1/7– 1/13)

  • Data Tracking Graphs – http://wiki.openstack.org/WeeklyNewsletter
  • OpenStack Compute (NOVA) Data
    • 10 Active Reviews
    • 101 Active Branches – owned by  32 people &  6 teams
    • 1,118 commits by 60 people in last month
  • OpenStack Object Storage (SWIFT) Data
    • 2 Active Reviews
    • 36 Active Branches – owned by  19 people & 2 teams
    • 181 commits by  12 people in last month
  • Twitter Stats for Week:  #openstack 77 tweets; 48 re-tweets; all OpenStack total tweets 542
  • Bugs Stats for Week:  225 Tracked Bugs; 50 New Bugs; 15 In-process Bugs; 7 Critical Bugs; 27 High Importance Bugs; 85 Bugs (Fix Committed)
  • Blueprints Stats for Week: 125 Blueprints; 1 Essential, 6 High, 14 Medium, 13 Low, 91 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week:  11,076 Visits, 24,838 Pageviews, 70.31% New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages: Home 43.27%; /projects 12.02%; /projects/compute 18.29%; /projects/storage 12.71; /Community 5,40%

OPENSTACK IN THE NEWS

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OpenStack Conference/Design Summit Program Committee

 

January 10, 2011

I am pleased to announce the formation of the OpenStack Conference/Design Summit Program Committee who will work as a group to create the event agenda as well as overall conference theme. The following community members have volunteered their time:

  • Glen Campbell, Rackspace
  • Ram Durairaj, Cisco
  • David Holland
  • Jaesuk Ahn, Korea Telecom
  • Andrew Shafer, CloudScaling
  • Thierry Carrez, OpenStack Release Manager
  • Stephen Spector, OpenStack Community Manager

As the event is for the entire community, all community members are encouraged to participate with this group of volunteers in providing feedback and ideas for the agenda and theme. To monitor all event planning please watch this Wiki page (http://wiki.openstack.org/Summit/Spring2011) as well as the following three EtherPads:

I am also announcing that we have signed the contract with the Hyatt Santa Clara hotel for the event from April 26-29, 2011 and have obtained a discounted room rate for attendees with a room block. Please plan on staying at the hotel during the event as we will have a 24 hour lounge available for attendees to meet and work together as well as plenty of time for community members to hang out. If you are budget minded, we can also setup a room sharing program to ensure attendees can take part in this 24/7 event.

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OpenStack Developer Activity Weekly Review

 

January 7, 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.

Activitites

  • Branch Merge Proposal Freeze (January 6, 2011) – Only impacts branches introducing new features or changes in expected behavior; not branches fixing bugs. To submit a new feature you must follow the exception process found at http://wiki.openstack.org/BranchMergeProposalFreeze
  • Feature Freeze for Bexar scheduled for January 13th

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

  • BZR Plugin – Josh Kearney has created a plugin (https://github.com/jk0/bzr-pre-commit-hook) to ensure that PEP8 and unit tests are run automatically when submitting code
  • OpenStack Programming Model Framework – John Purrier has proposed (https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg00225.html)  a model where developers will  interact with the OpenStack services will not interact directly with the service API’s, but rather will have a set of published language bindings that define the programming model. This does not preclude direct service calls, but this will be discouraged in favor of using the bindings. The bindings will be considered the “Nova API” for all intents and purposes. Further discussion on this issue led to the community not being in favor of the idea of only using language bindings for developers as there is no guarantee that a specific language binding would be available for a specific release.
  • OpenStack API Discussion – John Purrier has posted (https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg00181.html) some comments on the OpenStack API discussing availability for Bexar and/0r Cactus release which also prompted the community focus on what the internal APIs are for OpenStack developers and what the external APIs are for  ecosystem developers to leverage. The current naming is devAPI for internal OpenStack development and OpenStack API for people creating solutions around OpenStack. Please note, naming of the internal devAPI is subject to change. Further details on OpenStack API for Bexar can be found at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/openstack-api-parity.

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

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