Category Archives: IPv6

Curious about SDN & OpenStack? We discuss at Open Networking Summit Panel (next Thursday)

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Next Thursday (6/18), I’m on a panel at the SJC Open Networking Summit with John Zannos (Canonical), Mark Carroll (HP), Mark McClain (VMware).  Our topic is software defined networking (SDN) and OpenStack which could go anywhere in discussion.
OpenStack is clearly driving a lot of open innovation around SDN (and NFV).
I have no idea of what other’s want to bring in, but I was so excited about the questions that I suggested that I thought to just post them with my answers here as a teaser.

1) Does OpenStack require an SDN to be successful?

Historically, no.  There were two networking modes.  In the future, expect that some level of SDN will be required via the Neutron part of the project.

More broadly, SDN appears to be a critical component to broader OpenStack success.  Getting it right creates a lock-in for OpenStack.

2) If you have an SDN for OpenStack, does it need to integrate with your whole datacenter or can it be an island around OpenStack?

On the surface, you can create an Island and get away with it.  More broadly, I think that SDN is most interesting if it provides network isolation throughout your data center or your hosting provider’s data center.  You may not run everything on top of OpenStack but you will be connecting everything together with networking.

SDN has the potential to be the common glue.

3) Of the SDN approaches, which ones seem to be working?  Why?

Overall, the overlay networking approaches seem to be leading.  Anything that requires central control and administration will have to demonstrate it can scale.  Anything that actually requires re-configuring the underlay networking quickly is also going to have to make a lot of progress.

Networking is already distributed.  Anything that breaks that design pattern has an uphill battle.

4) Are SDN and NFV co-dependent?  Are they driving each other?

Yes.  The idea of spreading networking functions throughout your data center to manage east-west or individual tenant requirements (my definition of NFV) requires a way to have isolated traffic (one of the uses for SDN).

5) Is SDN relevant outside of OpenStack?  If so, in what?

Yes.  SDN on containers will become increasingly important.  Also, SDN termination to multi-user systems (like a big database) also make sense.

6) IPv6?  A threat or assistance to SDN?

IPv6 is coming, really.  I think that IPv6 has isolation and encryption capabilities that compete with SDN as an overlay.  Widespread IPv6 adoption could make SDN less relevant.  It also does a better job for multi-cloud networking since it’s neutral and you don’t have to worry about which SDN tech your host is using.

Crowbar 2 Status Update > I can feel the rumble of the engines

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two

Crowbar Two

While I’ve been more muted on our Crowbar 2 progress since our pivot back to CB1 for Grizzly, it has been going strong and steady.  We took advantage of the extra time to do some real analysis about late-binding, simulated annealing, emergent services and functional operations that are directly reflected in Crowbar’s operational model (yes, I’m working on posted explaining each concept).

We’re planning Crowbar 2 hack-a-thon in Hong Kong before the OpenStack Ice House Summit (11/1-3).  We don’t expect a big crowd on site, but the results will be fun to watch remote and it should be possible to play along (watch the crowbar list for details).

In the mean time, I wanted to pass along this comprehensive status update by Crowbar’s leading committer, Victor Lowther:

It has been a little over a month since my last status report on
Crowbar 2.0, so now that we have hit the next major milestone
(installing the OS on a node and being able to manage it afterwards),
it is time for another status report.

Major changes since the initial status report:

* The Crowbar framework understands node aliveness and availability.
* The Network barclamp is operational, and can manage IPv4 and IPv6 in
  the same network.
* delayed_jobs + a stupidly thin queuing layer handle all our
  long-running tasks.
* We have migrated to postgresql 9.3 for all our database needs.
* DHCP and DNS now utilize the on_node_* role hooks to manage their
  databases.
* We support a 2 layer deployment tree -- system on top, everything
  else in the second layer.
* The provisioner can install Ubuntu 12.04 on other nodes.
* The crowbar framework can manage other nodes that are not in
  Sledgehammer.
* We have a shiny installation wizard now.

In more detail:

Aliveness and availability:

Nodes in the Crowbar framework have two related flags that control
whether the annealer can operate on them.

Aliveness is under the control of the Crowbar framework and
encapsulates the framework's idea of whether any given node is
manageable or not.  If a node is pingable and can be SSH'ed into as
root without a password using the credentials of the root user on
the admin node, then the node is alive, otherwise it is dead.
Aliveness is tested everytime a jig tries to do something on a node
-- if a node cannot be pinged and SSH'ed into from at least one of
its addresses on the admin network, it will be marked as
dead.  When a node is marked as dead, all of the noderoles on that
node will be set to either blocked or todo (depending on the state of
their parent noderoles), and those changes will ripple down the
noderole dependency graph to any child noderoles.

Nodes will also mark themselves as alive and dead in the course of
their startup and shutdown routines.

Availability is under the control of the Crowbar cluster
administrators, and should be used by them to tell Crowbar that it
should stop managing noderoles on the node.  When a node is not
available, the annealer will not try to perform any jig runs on a
node, but it will leave the state of the noderoles alone.

A node must be both alive and available for the annealer to perform
operations on it.

The Network Barclamp:

The network barclamp is operational, with the following list of
features:

* Everything mentioned in Architecture for the Network Barclamp in
  Crowbar 2.0
* IPv6 support.  You can create ranges and routers for IPv6 addresses
  as well as IPv4 addresses, and you can tell a network that it should
  automatically assign IPv6 addresses to every node on that network by
  setting the v6prefix setting for that network to either:
  * a /64 network prefix, or
  * "auto", which will create a globally unique RFC4193 IPv6 network
    prefix from a randomly-chosen 40 bit number (unique per cluster
    installation) followed by a subnet ID based on the ID of the
    Crowbar network.
  Either way, nodes in a Crowbar network that has a v6prefix will get
  an interface ID that maps back to their FQDN via the last 64 bits of
  the md5sum of that FQDN. For now, the admin network will
  automatically create an RFC4193 IPv6 network if it is not passed a
  v6prefix so that we can easily test all the core Crowbar components
  with IPv6 as well as IPv4.  The DNS barclamp has been updated to
  create the appropriate AAAA records for any IPv6 addresses in the
  admin network.

Delayed Jobs and Queuing:

The Crowbar framework runs all jig actions in the background using
delayed_jobs + a thin queuing layer that ensures that only one task is
running on a node at any given time.  For now, we limit ourselves to
having up to 10 tasks running in the background at any given time,
which should be enough for the immediate future until we come up with
proper tuning guidelines or auto-tuning code for significantly larger
clusters.

Postgresql 9.3:

Migrating to delayed_jobs for all our background processing made it
immediatly obvious that sqlite is not at all suited to handling real
concurrency once we started doing multiple jig runs on different nodes
at a time. Postgresql is more than capable of handling our forseeable
concurrency and HA use cases, and gives us lots of scope for future
optimizations and scalability.

DHCP and DNS:

The roles for DHCP and DNS have been refactored to have seperate
database roles, which are resposible for keeping their respective
server roles up to date.  Theys use the on_node_* roles mentioned in
"Roles, nodes, noderoles, lifeycles, and events, oh my!" along with a
new on_node_change event hook create and destroy DNS and DHCP database
entries, and (in the case of DHCP) to control what enviroment a node
will PXE/UEFI boot into.  This gives us back the abiliy to boot into
something besides Sledgehammer.

Deployment tree:

Until now, the only deployment that Crowbar 2.0 knew about was the
system deployment.  The system deployment, however, cannot be placed
into proposed and therefore cannot be used for anything other than
initial bootstrap and discovery.  To do anything besides
bootstrap the admin node and discover other nodes, we need to create
another deployment to host the additional noderoles needed to allow
other workloads to exist on the cluster.  Right now, you can only
create deployments as shildren of the system deployment, limiting the
deployment tree to being 2 layers deep.

Provisioner Installing Ubuntu 12.04:

Now, we get to the first of tqo big things that were added in the last
week -- the provisioner being able to install Ubuntu 12.04 and bring
the resulting node under management by the rest of the CB 2.0
framework.  This bulds on top of the deployment tree and DHCP/DNS
database role work.  To install Ubuntu 12.04 on a node from the web UI:

1: Create a new deployment, and add the provisioner-os-install role to
that deployment.  In the future you will be able to edit the
deployment role information to change what the default OS for a
deployment should be.
2: Drag one of the non-admin nodes onto the provisioner-os-install
role.  This will create a proposed noderole binding the
provisioner-os-install role to that node, and in the future you would
be able to change what OS would be installed on that node by editing
that noderole before committing the deployment.
3: Commit the snapshot.  This will cause several things to happen:
  * The freshly-bound noderoles will transition to TODO, which will
    trigger an annealer pass on the noderoles.
  * The annealer will grab all the provisioner-os-install roles that
    are in TODO, set them in TRANSITION, and hand them off to
    delayed_jobs via the queuing system.
  * The delayed_jobs handlers will use the script jig to schedule a
    reboot of the nodes for 60 seconds in the future and then return,
    which will transition the noderole to ACTIVE.
  * In the crowbar framework, the provisioner-os-install role has an
    on_active hook which will change the boot environment of the node
    passed to it via the noderole to the appropriate os install state
    for the OS we want to install, and mark the node as not alive so
    that the annealer will ignore the node while it is being
    installed.
  * The provisioner-dhcp-database role has an on_node_change handler
    that watches for changes in the boot environment of a node.  It
    will see the bootenv change, update the provisioner-dhcp-database
    noderoles with the new bootenv for the node, and then enqueue a
    run of all of the provisioner-dhcp-database roles.
  * delayed_jobs will see the enqueued runs, and run them in the order
    they were submitted.  All the runs sholuld happen before the 60
    seconds has elapsed.
  * When the nodes finally reboot, the DHCP databases should have been
    updated and the nodes will boot into the Uubntu OS installer,
    install, and then set their bootenv to local, which will tell the
    provisioner (via the provisioner-dhcp-database on_node_change
    hook) to not PXE boot the node anymore.
  * When the nodes reboot off their freshly-installed hard drive, they
    will mark themselves as alive, and the annealer will rerun all of
    the usual discovery roles.
The semi-astute observer will have noticed some obvious bugs and race
conditions in the above sequence of steps.  These have been left in
place in the interest of expediency and as learning oppourtunities for
others who need to get familiar with the Crowbar codebase.

Installation Wizard:

We have a shiny installation that you can use to finish bootstrapping
your admin node.  To use it, pass the --wizard flag after your FQDN to
/opt/dell/bin/install-crowbar when setting up the admin node, and the
install script will not automatically create an admin network or an
entry for the admin node, and logging into the web UI will let you
customize things before creating the initial admin node entry and
committing the system deployment.  

Once we get closer to releasing CB 2.0, --wizard will become the default.

#OpenStack Blueprint for Cloud Installer (#crowbar, #apache2)

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Tonight I submitted a formal OpenStack Common blue print for Crowbar as a cloud installer.  My team at Dell considers this to be our first step towards delivering the code as open source (next few weeks) and want to show the community the design thinking behind the project.  Crowbar currently only embodies a fraction of this scope but we have designed it looking forward.

I’ve copied the text of our inital blueprint here until it is approved.  The living document will be maintained at the OpenStack launch pad and I will update links appropriately.

Here’s what I submitted:

Note: Installer is used here because of convention. The scope of this blue print is intended to include expansion and maintenance of the OpenStack infrastructure. 

Summary

This blueprint creates a common installation system for OpenStack infrastructure and components. The installer should be able to discover and configure physical equipment (servers,switches, etc) and then deploy the OpenStack software components in an optimum way for the discovered infrastructure. Minimum manual steps should be needed for setup and maintenance of the system.

Users should be able to leverage and contribute to components of the system without deploying 100% of the system. This encourages community collaboration. For example, installation scripts that deploy and configure OpenStack components should be usable without using bare metal configuration and vice-versa.

The expected result will be installations that are 100% automated after racking gear with no individual touch of any components.

This means that the installer will be able to

  • expand physical capacity
  • update of software components
  • addition of new software components
  • cope with heterogeneous environments (hardware, OpenStack components, hyper-visors, operating systems, etc)
  • handle rolling upgrades (due to the scale of OpenStack target deployments)

 

Release Note

Not currently released. Reference code (“Crowbar”) to be delivered by Dell via GitHub .

Rationale / Problem Statement

While a complete deployment system is an essential component to ensure adoption, it also fosters sharing and encoding of operational methods by the community. This follows and “Open Ops” strategy that encourages OpenStack users to create and share best practices.

The installer addresses the following needs

  • Community collaboration on deployment scripts and architecture.
  • Bare metal installation – this is different, but possibly related to Nova bare metal provisioning
  • OpenStack is evolving (Ops Model, CloudOps )
  • Provide a common installation platform to facilitate consistent deployments

It is important that the installer does NOT

  • constrain architecture to limit scale
  • create extra effort to re-balance as system capacity grows

This design includes an “Ops Infrastructure API” for use by other components and services. This REST API will allow trusted applications to discover and inspect the operational infrastructure to provide additional services. The API should expose

  • Managed selection of components & requests
  • Expose internal infrastructure (not for customer use, but to enable Ops tools)
    • networks
    • nodes
    • capacity
    • configuration

 

Assumptions

 

  • OpenStack code base will not limit development based on current architecture practices. Cloud architectures will need to adopt
  • Expectation to use IP-based system management tools to provide out of band reboot and power controls.

 

Design

The installation process has multiple operations phases: 1) bare metal provisioning, 2) component deployment, and 3) upgrade/redeployment. While each phase is distinct, they must act in a coordinated way.

A provisioning state machine (PSM) is a core concept for this overall installation architecture. The PSM must be extensible so that new capabilities and sequences can be added.

It is important that installer support IPv6 as an end state. It is not required that the entire process be IPv4 or IPv6 since changing address schema may be desirable depending on the task to be performed.

Modular Design Objective

  • should have a narrow focus for installation – a single product or capability.
  • may have pre-requisites or dependencies but as limited as possible
  • should have system, zone, and node specific configuration capabilities
  • should not interfere with operation of other modules

 

Phase 1: Bare Metal Provisioning

  • For each node:
    • Entry State: unconfigured hardware with network connectivity and PXE boot enabled.
    • Exit State: minimal node config (correct operating system installed, system named and registered, checked into OpenStack install manager)

The core element for Phase 1 is a “PXE State Machine” (a subset of the PSM) that orchestrates node provisioning through multiple installation points. This allows different installation environments to be used while the system is prepared for it’s final state. These environments may include BIOS & RAID configuration, diagnostics, burn-in, and security validation.

It is anticipated that nodes will pass through phase 1 provisioning FOR EACH boot cycle. This allows the Installation Manager to perform any steps that may be dictated based on the PSM. This could include diagnostic and security checks of the physical infrastructure.

Considerations:

  • REST API for updating to new states from nodes
  • PSM changes PXE image based on state updates
  • PSM can use IPMI to force power changes
  • DHCP reservations assigned by MAC after discovery so nodes have a predictable IP
  • Phase 1 images may change IP addresses during this phase.
  • Discovery phase would use short term DHCP addresses. The size of the DHCP lease pool may be restricted but should allow for provisioning a rack of nodes at a time.
  • Configuration parameters for Phase 1 images can be passed
    • via DHCP properties (preferred)
    • REST data
  • Discovery phase is expected to set the FQDN for the node and register it with DNS

 

Phase 2: Component Deployment

  • Entry State: set of nodes in minimal configuration (number required depends on components to deploy, generally >=5)
  • Requirements:
  • Exit State: one or more

During Phase 2, the installer must act on the system as a whole. The focus shifts from single node provisioning, to system level deployment and configuration.

Phase 2 extends the PSM to comprehend the dependencies between system components. The use of a state machine is essential because system configuration may require that individual nodes return to Phase 1 in order to change their physical configuration. For example, a node identified for use by Swift may need to be setup as a JBOD while the same node could be configured as RAID 10 for Nova. The PSM would also be used to handle inter-dependencies between components that are difficult to script in stages such as rebalancing a Swift ring.

Considerations:

  • Deployments must be infrastructure aware so they can take network topology, disk capacity, fault zones, and proximity into account.
  • System must generate a reviewable proposal for roles nodes will perform.
  • Roles (nodes may have >1 role) define OS & prerequisite components that execute on on nodes
  • Operations on nodes should be omnipotent for individual actions (multiple state operations will violate this principle by definition)
  • System wide configuration information must be available to individual configuration nodes (e.g.: Scheduler must be able to retrieve a list of all nodes and that list must be automatically updated when new nodes are added).
  • Administrators must be able to centrally override global configuration on a individual, rack and zone basis.
  • Scripts must be able to identify other nodes and find which roles they were executing
  • Must be able to handle non-OS components such as networking, VLANs, load balancers, and firewalls.

 

Phase 3: Upgrade / Redeployment

The ultimate objective for Phase 3 is to foster a continuous deployment capability in which updates from OpenStack can be frequently and easily implemented in a production environment with minimal risk. This requires a substantial amount of self-testing and automation.

Phase 3 maintains the system when new components arrive. Phase 3 includes the added requirements:

  • rolling upgrades so that system operation is not compromised during a deployment
  • upgrade/patch of modules
  • new modules must be aware of current deployments
  • configuration and data must be preserved
  • deployments may extend the PSM to to pre-stage operations (move data and vms) before taking action.

 

Ops API

This needs additional requirements.

The objective of the Ops API is to provide a standard way for operations tools to map the internal cloud infrastructure without duplicating discovery effort. This will allow tools that can:

  • create billing data
  • audit security
  • rebalance physical capacity
  • manage power
  • audit & enforce physical partitions between tenants
  • generate ROI analysis
  • IP Address Management (possibly integration/bootstrap with the OpenStack network services)
  • Capacity Planning

 

User Stories

 

Personas:

  • Oscar: Operations Chief
    • Knows of Chef or Puppet. Likely has some experience
    • Comfortable and likes Linux. Probably prefers CentOS
    • Can work with network configuration, but does not own network
    • Has used VMware
  • Charlie: CIO
    • Concerned about time to market and ROI
    • Is working on commercial offering based on OpenStack
  • Denise: Cloud Developer
    • Working on adding features to OpenStack
    • Working on services to pair w/ OpenStack
    • Comfortable with Ruby code
  • Quick: Data Center Worker
    • Can operate systems
    • In charge of rack and replacement of gear
    • Can supervise, but not create automation

 

Proof of Concept (PoC ) use cases

 

Agrees to POC

  • Charlie agrees to be in POC by signing agreements
  • Dell gathers information about shipping and PO delivery
  • Quick provides shipping information to Dell
  • Oscar downloads ISO and VMPlayer image from Dell provided site.

 

Get Equipment Setup to base

Event: The Dell equipment has just arrived.

  • Quick checks the manifest to make sure that the equipment arrived.
  • Quick racks the servers and switch following the wiring chart provided by Oscar
  • Quick follows the installation guides BIOS and Raid configuration parameters for the Admin Node
  • Quick powers up the servers to make sure all the lights blink then turns them back off
  • Oscar arrives with his laptop and the crowbar ISO
  • As per instructions, Oscar wires his laptop to the admin server and uses VMplayer to bootstrap the ISO image
  • Oscar logs into the VMPlayer image and configures base admin parameters
    • Hostname
    • networks (admin and public required)
      • admin ips
      • routers
      • masks
      • subnets
      • usable ranges (mostly for public).
    • Optional: ntp server(s)
    • Optional: forwarding nameserver(s)
    • passwords and accounts
    • Manually edits files that get downloaded.
  • System validates configuration for syntax and obvious semantic issues.
  • System clears switch config and sets port fast and lldp med configuration.
  • Oscar powers system and selects network boot (system may automatically do this out of the “box”, but can reset if need be).
  • Once the bootstrap and installation of the Ubuntu-based image is completed, Oscar disconnects his laptop from the Admin server and connects into the switch.
  • Oscar configures his laptop for DHCP to join the admin network.
  • Oscar looks at the Chef UI and verifies that it is running and he can see the Admin node in the list.
    • The Install guide will describe this first step and initial passwords.
    • The install guide will have a page describing a valid visualization of the environment.
  • Oscar powers on the next node in the system and monitors its progress in Chef.
    • The install guide will have a page describing this process.
    • The Chef status page will have the node arrive and can be monitored from there. Completion occurs when the node is “checked in”. Intermediate states can be viewed by checking the nodes state attribute.
    • Node transitions through defined flow process for discovery, bios update, bios setting, and installation of base image.
  • Once Oscar sees the node report into Chef, Oscar shows Quick how to check the system status and tells him to turn on the rest of the nodes and monitor them.
  • Quick monitors the nodes while they install. He calls Oscar when they are all in the “ready” state. Then he calls Oscar back.
  • Oscar checks their health in Nagios and Ganglia.
  • If there are any red warnings, Oscar works to fix them.

 

Install OpenStack Swift

Event: System checked out healthy from base configuration

  • Oscar logs into the Crowbar portal
  • Oscar selects swift role from role list
  • Oscar is presented with a current view of the swift deployment.
    • Which starts empty
  • Oscar asks for a proposal of swift layout
    • The UI returns a list of storage, auth, proxy, and options.
  • Oscar may take the following actions:
    • He may tweak attributes to better set deployment
      • Use admin node in swift
      • Networking options …
    • He may force a node out or into a sub-role
    • He may re-generate proposal
    • He may commit proposal
  • Oscar finishes configuration proposal and commits proposal.
  • Oscar may validate progress by watching:
    • Crowbar main screen to see that configuration has been updated.
    • Nagios to validate that services have started
    • Chef UI to see raw data..
  • Oscar checks the swift status page to validate that the swift validation tests have completed successfully.
  • If Swift validation tests fail, Oscar uses troubleshooting guide to correct problems or calls support.
    • Oscar uses re-run validation test button to see if corrective action worked.
  • Oscar is directed to Swift On-line documentation for using a swift cloud from the install guide.

 

Install OpenStack Nova

Event: System checked out healthy from base configuration

  • Oscar logs into the Crowbar portal
  • Oscar selects nova role from role list
  • Oscar is presented with a current view of the nova deployment.
    • Which starts empty
  • Oscar asks for a proposal of nova layout
    • The UI returns a list of options, and current sub-role usage (6 or 7 roles).
    • If Oscar has already configured swift, the system will automatically configure glance to use swift.
  • Oscar may take the following actions:
    • He may tweak attributes to better set deployment
      • Use admin node in nova
      • Networking options …
    • He may force a node out or into a sub-role
    • He may re-generate proposal
    • He may commit proposal
  • Oscar finishes configuration proposal and commits proposal.
  • Oscar may validate progress by watching:
    • Crowbar main screen to see that configuration has been updated.
    • Nagios to validate that services have started
    • Chef UI to see raw data..
  • Oscar checks the nova status page to validate that the nova validation tests have completed successfully.
  • If nova validation tests fail, Oscar uses troubleshooting guide to correct problems or calls support.
    • Oscar uses re-run validation test button to see if corrective action worked.
  • Oscar is directed to Nova On-line documentation for using a nova cloud from the install guide.

 

Pilot and Beyond Use Cases

 

Unattended refresh of system

This is a special case, for Denise.

  • Denise is making daily changes to OpenStack’s code base and needed to test it. She has committed changes to their git code repository and started the automated build process
  • The system automatically receives that latest code and copies it to the admin server
  • A job on admin server sees there is new code resets all the work nodes to “uninstalled” and reboots them.
  • Crowbar reimages and reinstalls the images based on its cookbooks
  • Crowbar executes the test suites against OpenStack when the install completes
  • Denise reviews the test suite report in the morning.

 

Integrate into existing management

Event: System has passed lab inspection, is about to be connected into the corporate network (or hosting data center)

  • Charlie calls Oscar to find out when PoC will start moving into production
  • Oscar realizes that he must change from Nagios to BMC on all the nodes or they will be black listed on the network.
  • Oscar realizes that he needs to update the SSH certificates on the nodes so they can be access via remote. He also has to change the accounts that have root access.
  • Option 1: Reinstall.
    • Oscar updates the Chef recipes to remove Nagios and add BMC, copy the cert and configure the accounts.
    • Oscar sets all the nodes to “uninstalled” and reimages the system.
    • Repeat above step until system is configured correctly
  • Option 2: Update Recipes
    • Oscar updates the Chef recipes to remove Nagios and add BMC, copy the cert and configure the accounts.
    • Oscar runs the Chef scripts and inspects one of the nodes to see if the changes were made

 

Implementation

We are offering Crowbar as a starting point. It is an extension of Opscode Chef Server that provides the state machine for phases 1 and 2. Both code bases are Apache 2

Test/Demo Plan

TBD

OpenStack Design Conference Observations (plus IPv6 thread)

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I’m not going to post OpenStack full conference summary because I spent more time talking 1 on 1 with partners and customers than participating in sessions.  Other members of the Dell team (@galthaus) did spend more time (I’ll see if he’ll post his notes).

I did lead an IPv6 unconference and those notes are below.

Overall, my observations from the conference are:

  • A constantly level of healthy debate.  For OpenStack to thrive, the community must be able to disagree, discuss and reach consensus.   I saw that going in nearly every session and hallway.  There were some pitched battles with forks and branches but no injuries.
  • Lots of adopters.  For a project that’s months old, there were lots of companies that were making plans to use OpenStack in some way.
  • Everyone was in a rush.  There’s been something of a log jam for decision making because the market is changing so fast companies seem to delay committing waiting for the “next big thing.”
  • Service Providers and implementers were out in force.
  • IPv6 is interesting to a limited audience, but consistently injected.

While IPv6 deserves more coverage here, I thought it would be worthwhile to at least preserve my notes/tweets from the IPv6 unconference discussion (To IP or not to IPv6? That will be the question.) at the OpenStack Design Summit.

NOTE: My tweets for this topic are notes, not my own experience/opinions

  • RT @opnstk_com_mgr #openstack unconference in camino real today < #IPv6 session going now – good size crowd
  • #NTT has IPv6 for VMs and tests for IPv6. If you set the mac, then you will know what the address will be.
  • it will be helpful to break out VMs to multiple networks – could have a VM on both IPv6 & IPv4
  • @zehicle @sjensen1850 (Dell) if IPv6 100% then may break infrastructure products – inside, easier to stay v4
    • you don’t want to paint yourself into a corner – IPv6 should not become your major feature requirement
  • typing IPv6 address not that hard to remember. DNS helps, but not required if you want to get to machines.
  • using IPv6 not hard – issue is the policy to do it. Until it’s forced. We need to find a path for DUAL operation.
  • chicken/egg problem. Our primary job is to make sure it works and is easy to adopt.
    • we are missing information on what options we have for transforms
  • where is the responsibility to do the translation? floating IP scheme needs to be worked out. IPv6 can make this easier.
  • idea, IPv6 should be the default. Fill gap with IPv4 as a Service? Floating needs NAT – v4aaS is LB/Proxy
  • unconference session was great! Good participation and ideas. Lots of opinions.

We had a hallway conversation after the unconference about what would force the switch.  In a character, it’s $.

Votes for IPv6 during the keynote (tweet: I’d like to hear from audience here if that’s important to them. RT to vote).  Retweeters: