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

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]

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 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

Mark Collier
Chief Community Stacker
@sparkycollier