{"id":6342,"date":"2014-07-14T16:48:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T21:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.openstack.org\/blog\/?p=6342"},"modified":"2014-08-04T09:42:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-04T14:42:23","slug":"five-days-twelve-writers-one-book-sprint-one-excellent-book-on-openstack-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openstack.org\/blog\/five-days-twelve-writers-one-book-sprint-one-excellent-book-on-openstack-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Days + Twelve Writers + One Book Sprint = One Excellent Book on OpenStack Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update:\u00a0<\/strong>You can now download the OpenStack Architecture Design Guide here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One thing about OpenStack is that you can find lots of information on how to do specific things, such as start an instance or install a test cloud on VirtualBox, but there isn\u2019t much out there to give you the Big Picture, such as how to design a massively-scalable OpenStack cloud, or a cloud that\u2019s optimized for delivering streaming content. That\u2019s why this past week a dozen OpenStack experts and writers from companies across the OpenStack ecosystem gathered at VMware\u2019s Palo Alto campus for the OpenStack Architecture Design Guide book sprint. The intent was to \u00a0deliver a completed book on designing OpenStack clouds — in just five days.<\/p>\n

Now, I wrote my first book — a pretty straightforward introduction to Active Server Pages 3.0 — in seven weeks, and then it went through months of editing before arriving at the printer. I never wrote a more significant book that took less than six months. \u00a0So when I volunteered for the sprint, I confess that I didn\u2019t expect much. \u00a0Oh, I knew that at the end of the week we\u2019d have a book. \u00a0I just didn\u2019t expect it to be the really great book that actually emerged.<\/p>\n

How a book sprint works<\/b><\/p>\n\"Screen<\/a>\n

The process of actually writing the book was pretty regimented, but because we felt like we had control over the direction, we didn\u2019t feel stifled by it. \u00a0We started by discussing the audience — architects designing OpenStack systems or evaluating it for use — and brainstorming a likely structure.<\/p>\n

After deciding that we\u2019d basically cover groupings of use cases for OpenStack clouds, we brainstormed all the different types we might cover, putting them on Post-its and grouping them on the whiteboard. (Let\u2019s just say that \u201cCI\/CD\u201d and \u201cdev\/test\u201d were on a lot of our minds.) \u00a0Before long it was clear that we had seven major categories, such as \u201ccompute focused\u201d or \u201cmassively scalable\u201d.<\/p>\n

We then broke into two groups, each of which was to take half an hour and brainstorm a structure for these categories. \u00a0Interestingly, although we used different terms, the structures the two groups emerged with were virtually identical. \u00a0(Which meant there was no fight to the death, which is always nice.)<\/p>\n

From there our group of 12 broke into 3 groups of 4, each diving into a section. \u00a0At the end of Monday, we had 15,000 words already written (of which we\u2019re still sure 10,000 came from Beth Cohen).<\/p>\n

I was stunned.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t stunned because we had so much content; I was stunned because it was, well, actually pretty good content.<\/p>\n

By Wednesday morning, the book was pretty much written, and it was on to editing. \u00a0Groups read through sections written by others to try and fill in any holes, and Beth and I began editing, to try and even out the tone. \u00a0After that came two more passes: copyediting (by Alexandra Settle, Scott Lowe, and Sean Winn) and fact checking.<\/p>\n

Long before Friday, we had a book that we could be proud of.<\/p>\n\"Screen<\/a>\n

What the OpenStack Architecture Design Guide covers<\/b><\/p>\n

The OpenStack Architecture Design Guide is for architects and evaluators; deployment is covered in the OpenStack Operations Guide, so we didn\u2019t cover that. The Design Guide covers the following types of OpenStack clouds:<\/p>\n