Join OpenStack Now and Help Influence the Future of Cloud Computing

The OpenStack momentum continues to grow quickly and now is the perfect time for you to join us at the start of this open source movement in cloud computing. We are very close to a significant release in just a few weeks and are actively recruiting testers and developers to find and fix bugs as well as assist in future product features and design. Of course, there can never be enough people willing to help document the project as we are hosting a Document Sprint at Design Summit next month in an effort to accelerate developer and user documentation. Speaking of users, we are now ready for you to start trying out the products and supplying feedback and new ideas.

To help you get started and find your way in the OpenStack community I am listing some great places to start based on your needs from the project. Another place to start is the ever growing “Getting Started with OpenStack” documentation site at http://wiki.openstack.org/Documentation.

DEVELOPERS

TESTER

  • Sign up for a Launchpad account and install BZR to obtain a copy of the code including unit tests. Follow the development process to add additional unit tests for general community execution and/or visit the bug tracking section of Launchpad for find or create bugs
  • For more details, go to http://wiki.openstack.org/HowToContribute and read “If you’re a tester (and breaker), get started this way”
  • OpenStack Installation Instructions at http://wiki.openstack.org/InstallInstructions

WRITERS

  • Sign up for a Launchpad account and install BZR to obtain a copy of the code; contributions to .rst files in /docs/source/ director
  • Click EDIT on the growing number of pages in the OpenStack Wiki
  • Attend 2-day Doc Sprint at Design Summit for a focused team writing session
  • For more info, go to http://wiki.openstack.org/HowToContribute and read “If you’re into doc, we’d love to see you”

USERS

We also encourage anyone interested in participating or learning about OpenStack to attend our 4 day Design Summit Nov 9 – 12 in San Antonio, TX. The first two days will have business and developer tracks with the last two days comprising an InstallFest, Doc Sprint, and Developer Coding Experience. Learn more and register at http://www.openstack.org/register.

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OpenStack Weekly Newsletter (Oct 1 – Oct 7)

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 Stephen Spector.

Simon Crosby, CTO Citrix Systems at Citrix Synergy in Berlin 2010

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS

  • Speaking at an event on #openstack, let me know for addition to this list
  • Design Summit : Nov 9-12, 2010 in San Antonio, TX

DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

GENERAL COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY STATISTICS (10/1 – 10/7)

  • Twitter Stats for Week:  54 tweets ; 57 re-tweets
  • Bugs Stats for Week: 26 New Bugs; 140 Open Bugs; 5 In-process Bugs; 1 Critical Bug; 12 High Importance Bugs; 2 Bugs with Patches
  • Blueprints Stats for Week: 55 Blueprints; 3 Essential, 3 High, 11 Medium, 2 Low, 36 Undefined
  • OpenStack Website Stats for Week:  6,340 Visits, 13,884 Pageviews, 62.33 New Visits
    • Top 5 Pages :  Home 47.20% ; /projects 11.65% ; /projects/compute 11.92% ; /projects/storage 10.62%; /community 7.09%

OPENSTACK IN THE NEWS

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Design Summit Registration Open

OpenStack is pleased to open registration for the Design Summit San Antonio 2010 from November 9 – 12, 2010. Due to facility limitations we are only accepting 300 registrations for this event so please register soon to avoid complications. Local hotels, evening events, and current agenda information is listed on the registration site so please feel free to return to the site if the information you are looking for is not yet available. We anticipate having the complete business track agenda ready next week and the developer track later this month as the OpenStack developers are building that track within Launchpad.

We look forward to this OpenStack event as the community continues to expand in terms of membership, contribution, and ideas. Your participation is the key in OpenStack’s success.

Registration Site: http://www.openstack.org/register

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Architecture Board Nomination Deadline Extended to Oct 15th

Stackers,

When we published the Governance Doc recently, I mentioned that we had some deadlines coming up fast.  Namely, the deadline for nominating someone for a seat on the Architecture Board.  To give the community some additional time, we’ve extended the nomination deadline to October 15th, 2010.

Additionally, this pushes out all of the other dates by 2 weeks:

  • Date we’ll publish the candidates is now:  October 20th, 2010
  • Date of the vote is now:  November 1st, 2010

The official doc is now updated to reflect the new dates.

Please send your nominations to Jonathan Bryce: [email protected]

In other news, we have passed feature freeze for the “Austin” release of OpenStack Compute, and are rapidly approaching the release date of October 21st.  After that, we look forward to seeing everyone at the next Design Summit on November 9th-12th, 2010 in San Antonio Texas.

Mark Collier

@sparkycollier

OpenStack Communication System Update

With more and more people becoming interested in OpenStack on a daily basis, it becomes critical that we establish a proper (as they say in the UK) communication system to ensure all participants have a voice within the community and can easily find the information they are looking for. To further improve this system, I am announcing several new mailing lists which are all open to any community member interested in various parts of the OpenStack project.

Please look over these lists and subscribe to the various lists that best meet your needs. We have chosen to use Mailman for these lists as this is a common tool found in most open source projects. I will also be posting a new web page this week which contains the full list of OpenStack Mailman mailing lists along with Archive links. I will also be working with MarkMail to ensure that all OpenStack mailing lists are included in their amazing open source mailing list search tool at http://markmail.org/ [More on that soon].

If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected].

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Community Manager Introduction

It is with great fanfare and fireworks that I introduce myself as the new community manager of the OpenStack project. I firmly believe that the cloud computing paradigm is on the cusp of a significant industry tidal wave and OpenStack is the ground breaking open source technology that will lead the revolution. I look forward to doing my part in assisting the community in a plethora of ways to ensure the success of all participants.

Over the past three years I worked as the community manger for the open source Xen.org community and have taken a leading role in helping to promote all open source technologies in events around the world and as an open source blogger for Network World. I intend to continue my promotion and support of open source technologies as a vocal community manager on behalf of OpenStack.

Please feel free to contact me at any time with any question or ideas you have for OpenStack as I am the go to person for all things OpenStack if you are unsure who to contact or how to get something done. I expect great things from this open source project and look forward to your help in driving OpenStack into an industry leading cloud platform. Over the next few weeks, I will be traveling between Austin and Vero Beach, Florida moving my family and will do my best to respond to the various community issues that arise. I anticipate being firmly in place in Austin by the start of October so please understand any delays in my response to you.

Once again, I look forward to the success of OpenStack and will do my best to ensure that anyone wishing to participate has the tools and support they need. Looking forward to the Stack Revolution.

You can reach me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @opnstk_com_mgr. My office phone in Austin, TX is (210) 312-1162.

Finally, please remember to attend the OpenStack Design Summit on Nov 9 – 12, 2010 in San Antonio, TX. More information at http://openstack.org/blog/2010/09/the-second-openstack-design-conference/. OpenStack is also looking for innovative, creative, highly technical community leaders to help drive the project, jobs at http://openstack.org/jobs.

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OpenStack Governance

When the OpenStack community was formed in July, we outlined a number of key principles centered around a commitment to Openness.  Now you may notice that the word “open” is applied to just about everything these days, right up there with “cloud”, so when you set out to create an “open cloud” it’s important to spell out just what that means.

We defined what “open” means to OpenStack on the wiki in detail, but here are the highlights for reference:

  1. Open Source (not open core) with appropriate license (in our case, Apache 2.0 which is OSI approved, GPLv3 compatible, and DFSG compatible)
  2. Open Design
  3. Open Development
  4. Open Community

One of our key deliverables in keeping with this commitment was to publish a Governance process shortly after the establishment of the community, and to ensure that the process outlined contained active involvement and representation from the community.  The process is now documented in full on the wiki but I will mention a couple of key points here.

  • Elections for the initial four community-elected Community Member seats on the Architecture Board will be held on October 15, 2010.
  • Interested candidates should email Jonathan Bryce ([email protected]) no later than September 30, 2010.

This Architecture Board will determine, among other things, which additional sub-projects may be added in the future.  We’ve received a number of inquiries from people interested starting new efforts as part of the OpenStack community, or in donating existing projects to the cause.  The Governance model gives us a process for making such decisions in the future.

As noted in the document, we have strived to get the Governance model right but undoubtedly we’ll need to continue to evolve the process over time in the midst of such a dynamic industry with a very active community, and we’re committed to doing just that.  Please let us know what you think in your forum of choice (comments below, #openstack on freenode.net, your blog, twitter etc).

The first few weeks of this project have been a whirlwind, with no signs of slowing down!  Next month, we look forward to establishing the boards and achieving a major milestone on the Compute project (initial release, codenamed Austin).  In November (9-12), we are excited to get back together in person for the 2nd Design Conference.

Mark Collier

@sparkycollier

[email protected]

The State of OpenStack…and What’s Next?! (Part One)

Wow, what a crazy month it has been! We’re really excited by all the buzz and activity that’s going on in OpenStack–in IRC (freenode.net #openstack) and on the mailing lists (launchpad.net/openstack), as well as on Twitter (@openstack) and in the media. But hype time is over and it’s time for us to begin delivering on the promises of OpenStack.

OpenStack Compute and Object Storage already have a number of important features in the code base today including:

  • managing virtual machines
  • network configuration for those VMs
  • a fully distributed, replicated storage system
  • storing, retrieving, and replicating objects and files up to 5GB in size

In addition, we have already released interfaces for controlling an OpenStack environment via a web control panel, iPad, iPhone or Android device.

But there is more coming. Chief Architect Rick Clark recently sent out an update to the community outlining the plans for our upcoming October 21 “Austin” release. This initial release of Compute will advance the project a long way, in that it will allow the community to deploy proofs of concept on hundreds of servers on a single cluster and begin developing on the platform.  This is an important milestone on the path to reaching the long term goals of the project, and will be followed by new releases every 3 months.  We will discuss the follow on releases in another blog post, and in depth at the November 9-12th Design Conference in San Antonio.

There are some important changes and updates in the Austin release that are worthy of further detail.  Let me start with what we know will be available on October 21:

1.  The OpenStack API

The Austin release will include the official OpenStack RESTful API, which initially is based on the existing Rackspace Cloud API (published under Creative Commons in 2009).   It will also include additional functionality such as role-based access controls and additional networking actions. This API will be the official OpenStack API and it will evolve with the platform and needs of the community.

What about support for alternative APIs, such as EC2?  The EC2 compatible API, already in the code base today, will remain and be maintained; however, it is important for the project to have an official API that is tied directly to the OpenStack roadmap and feature set. We want to ensure that future OpenStack innovation can be driven by the community and not be restricted to the functionality of outside cloud APIs. The sub-projects are built in a way that will allow multiple APIs to be supported, so if there is an existing API that is really important to you (or one that comes along in the future), it is possible for you to add in support for that as well.

2.  Hypervisor & Image Support

A key tenant of OpenStack is hypervisor neutrality.  OpenStack currently uses libvirt, which provides an abstraction level for hypervisor management for a number of different hypervisors. The Austin release will contain support for XenServer, KVM, and UML. It also supports VirtualBox, which allows people to launch virtual machines on their laptop, making testing and development easier for community members.

For booting up new virtual machines, OpenStack will make use of the Rackspace Cloud’s imaging framework. The framework is based on a tarball of a bootable filesystem.  We will have more detail on future image support direction soon.

3.  Unifying Compute and Object Storage

Its important that the sub-projects of OpenStack can be utilized independently, but we also want to maximize the interfaces to make the entire system hum.  To that end, the authentication system for both Compute and Object Storage will be unified. We are also making Object Storage available as the image store for Compute servers.

4.  Networking Model

We will be supporting two network models in OpenStack: statically assigned, real Internet IP addresses; and private IP addresses within a dedicated subnet, connected via NATing from a private VPN to the public internet. The API will allow users to choose which model they want. Role-based access controls for firewalling will also be added.

These are features that are already in progress and we are comfortable will be complete for the Austin release. But we would like to get more in! We received a lot of input during the Design Summit in July–and continue to see suggestions roll in from the community. With the community’s help, we would like to get these features for the Austin release as well:

1.  Better Server Volumes

The existing Rackspace Cloud supports several great features for server volume management, and we want to get those into OpenStack as soon as possible: resizing servers, snapshotting volumes, and “Rescue Mode”.

2.  Better Server Management

The existing Rackspace Cloud also has more sophisticated server management tools, which we’re actively porting into OpenStack: “Rescue Mode”, and Web-based console access.

3.  Underlying (Core) Refactoring

We want to have as many people running, working on, and contributing to OpenStack as possible. Pragmatically, that means we need to try and make the codebase as friendly as possible. Current efforts are on three broad tracks:

a.  Packaging, deployment recipes, and installers

b.  Making the programming models as standard and understandable as possible

c.  Abstracting the datastore from the object model (enabling folks to use SQL or alternate KVS systems)

d.  Cleaning up code and providing consistent, useful documentation (read about our new tech writer)

We think these last three items are important and urgent, and hope to get active community engagement on their development. Hopefully they will make it into the Austin release, although since this is a time-boxed release, we can’t be certain.  Our priority will be to deliver a stable set of features rather than broad. If they are not ready by mid-October, we expect the community will be able to deliver them by our next release in January 2011 (more on that later).

Thanks Stackers for getting this project off to a great start!  Please reach out if you have any feedback or need any assistance.

On behalf of the OpenStack Team and Community,

Jim Curry
Chief Stacker
@jimcurry, [email protected]

The Second OpenStack Design Conference

The next OpenStack Design Conference is coming up fast, and we are excited to get everyone back together who attended the conference in July, and welcome a lot of new faces who’ve joined the community since the launch at OSCON.  Since the conference is just a few short weeks away, we wanted to let everyone know the moment we’d locked on a date and secured a location:

Dates:  November 9th-12th

Location:  The Weston Centre in Downtown San Antonio, TX

Address:  112 E. Pecan St. San Antonio, TX 78205

Map with nearby hotels:


View Larger Map

While we’re still working on the Agenda, the format will be the same as the last conference. Namely, the first two days (November 9th-10th) will be filled with different tracks (business and technical) with a lot of active discussion on goals and design decisions for the project. The last two days (November 11th-12th) will be used for hacking on the code and finalizing any design decisions for the next release that require prototyping / live testing. At the last summit, the heaviest attendance was the first day (when we have a general session), a bit less the second day, then about half on the final two days as the focus turns to coding. We are working on some evening plans as well.

If you can only make it one day, come on the first day November 9th.

What’s next?

1)  Hotel Block:  We are looking into the possibility of getting a block of rooms with a discount.  Given the short timeframe and the fact that other conferences are going on that week, you may want to go ahead and just book one of the hotels above, all of which are walking distance to Weston Centre.

2)  Invites:  We’ll be sending the formal invites via email to the registration process as soon as possible.  To ensure you receive the registration link, please sign up below:

3)  Preparing for the conference!  We will need your help as we devise schedules and work on the logistics.  Volunteers needed!

What to do now:

1)  Forward this post to others in the community, tweet, re-tweet rinse and repeat

2)  Book Travel

3)  As always, follow @openstack on twitter for the latest news and updates

4)  Sign up below to get the registration link when it’s ready

Notify Me When I Can Register
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Mark Collier
Chief Community Stacker
@sparkycollier

Content Stacker, Reporting for Duty

Well, hi there. Glad you could make it. Let me introduce myself. I’m Anne Gentle, the newest addition to the hardworking OpenStack team. And I’m so eager to get started I can barely contain myself. I’ve been in lurker mode for a few weeks and now it’s time to reveal my role – I’m the OpenStack Technical Writer.

How did I get here? I first started working in open source a few years ago, and I applied my technical communication skills gladly because there is often a gap in documentation and support in open source projects. I became a big supporter of FLOSS Manuals, where we write free manuals for free software. We work in a wiki and in Booki, a new collaborative authoring platform. We also employ a book sprint technique where we focus collaborative authoring efforts into week-long sprints. I’ve helped with a few book sprints and think it’s a great technique for open documentation.

Where do I go from here? Today I want to start outlining some documentation strategy to get your feedback and tweak it. We’ll be testing doc efforts as we go and likely start with the Object Storage area.

Audit and Analysis

This phase should answer questions like, what exists already and how is it doing? I plan to do a thorough content audit right away. Seems like there are a lot of places to write things down, and I want to determine what’s out there. I’ve started reading through the Swift documentation and learning about Sphinx. We’ve all been around technology long enough to know that tools are not the complete solution, that makers and crafters help the content go from adequate to exceptional.

I’ll also study other projects (I’ve been observing several different projects for a while now). I’d like to hear your preferences here as well – how do you get information from similar projects?

An audience analysis also comes in this phase – who needs the documentation and what tasks do they accomplish with it? I expect to be prioritizing both administrator documentation and developer documentation as well as introductory information for those on their initial approach to OpenStack.

Actions:

  • Build a table on the wiki showing where content exists.
  • Look for reuse opportunities as well as unifying characteristics such as audience, level of difficulty, chunking, and organization of content.
  • Describe the typical readers and the tasks they need to accomplish.

Creation and Collaboration

After an analysis phase, where I will avoid analysis paralysis, I want to look at content structure – what types of information should be created and where can you find them? Information typing is a huge part of what makes my life easier and more organized as a writer. Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote a great post about writing effective documentation detailingwhat to write. I completely agree that you can write any technical documentation with tutorials, topical guides, and reference guides. I believe this approach will help us write helpful, useful documentation. I would like to build in documentation as part of the ethos of the community, part of what we value.

At first glance, the types of documentation needed may be easily divided by reader – developer documentation (which could live in the Python code with Sphinx, in the specs in Launchpad, and in Etherpad when real-time collaboration is needed) and administrator documentation (which could live on the wiki, that’s yet to be determined). We always want to consider translation and local community support, because not speaking English as a first language shouldn’t deter you from contributing to the documentation.

Actions:

  • Create a Launchpad for documentation for requests and tracking purposes.
  • Create a starter style guide for the OpenStack wiki.
  • Talk to interested parties about contributing.
  • Set up starter templates on the wiki.
  • Write and edit as much as possible.
  • Plan for doc sprints on specific topics to coincide with in-person events.

Goals

I think the documentation should help support users first and foremost. To me, pragmatic, viewable results come first, fancy-pants solutions are second. I think that philosophy works great at Rackspace and I’m pleased to see it’s a core value – Results first, substance over flash.

How about you? What do you think should be the goals of OpenStack technical documentation? Support? Adoption? Education? All of the above? Let us know.

What can you do to help with doc?

Please, introduce me to people who want good documentation and recognize good doc.  Introduce yourself or name others. Send me examples of sites that do it well. Write things down as you go, even if they are rough notes. Help us shape a doc strategy so it fits our community.

You can read more about me on my blog at JustWriteClick.com, on Twitter @annegentle, and get in touch any number of ways – comment on my posts, talk to me on Twitter, email me at anne at openstack dot org.

I’ll be asking lots of questions as I get started, but these are my initial thoughts. Ready to start stacking!