[openstack-dev] [ironic] Re: New API for node create, specifying initial provision state

Lucas Alvares Gomes lucasagomes at gmail.com
Thu Aug 27 19:25:16 UTC 2015


Hi,

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 5:43 PM, Clint Byrum <clint at fewbar.com> wrote:
> Excerpts from Lucas Alvares Gomes's message of 2015-08-27 02:40:26 -0700:
>> On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 11:09 PM, Julia Kreger
>> <juliaashleykreger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > My apologies for not expressing my thoughts on this matter
>> > sooner, however I've had to spend some time collecting my
>> > thoughts.
>> >
>> > To me, it seems like we do not trust our users.  Granted,
>> > when I say users, I mean administrators who likely know more
>> > about the disposition and capabilities of their fleet than
>> > could ever be discovered or inferred via software.
>> >
>> > Sure, we have other users, mainly in the form of consumers,
>> > asking Ironic for hardware to be deployed, but the driver for
>> > adoption is who feels the least amount of pain.
>> >
>> > API versioning aside, I have to ask the community, what is
>> > more important?
>> >
>> > - An inflexible workflow that forces an administrator to
>> > always have a green field, and to step through a workflow
>> > that we've dictated, which may not apply to their operational
>> > scenario, ultimately driving them to write custom code to
>> > inject "new" nodes into the database directly, which will
>> > surely break from time to time, causing them to hate Ironic
>> > and look for a different solution.
>> >
>> > - A happy administrator that has the capabilities to do their
>> > job (and thus manage the baremetal node wherever it is in the
>> > operator's lifecycle) in an efficient fashion, thus causing
>> > them to fall in love with Ironic.
>> >
>>
>> I'm sorry, I find the language used in this reply very offensive.
>> That's not even a real question, due the alternatives you're basically
>> asking the community "What's more important, be happy or be sad ? Be
>> efficient or not efficient?"
>>
>
>
> Funny, I find your response a bit offensive, as a user of Ironic who has
> been falling in love with it for a couple of years now, and is confused
> by the recent changes to the API that completely ignore me.
>

I'm sorry if you feel like that, I didn't mean to offend anyone.

> I have _zero_ interest in this workflow. I want my nodes to be available
> as soon as I tell Ironic about them. You've added a step that makes no
> sense to me. Why not just let me create nodes in that state?
>
> It reminds me of a funny thing Monty Taylor pointed out in the Westin in
> Atlanta. We had to scramble to find our room keys to work the elevator,
> and upon unlocking the elevator, had to then push the floor for that
> room. As he pointed out "Why doesn't it just go to my floor now?"
>
> So, I get why you have the workflow, but I don't understand why you didn't
> include a short circuit for your existing users who are _perfectly happy_
> not having the workflow. So now I have to pin to an old API version to
> keep working the way I want, and you will eventually remove that API
> version, and I will proceed to grumble about why I have to change.
>

Sure, I don't think that in any of my replies I have said that I'm
against the idea of having anything like that, quite the opposite,
I've said that I want to have a fresh mind when I hear the proposal;
meaning no prejudgment.

But we have a process to deal with such requests, in Ironic we have a
spec process [1] which an idea have go to through before it's becomes
accepted into the project. The work flow you have zero interest in and
makes no sense to you was the work flow that have been discussed by
the Ironic community in the open as part of the this spec here [2].
I'm sure everyone would appreciate your input on that at the time. But
even now it's not late, the idea of having the short circuit still can
be included to the project so I encourage you to go through the spec
process [1] and propose it.

[1] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Ironic/Specs_Process
[2] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/133828/7

> Emotions matter to users. You're right that a technical argument helps
> us get our work done efficiently. But don't forget _why Ironic exists_.
> It's not for you to develop on, and it's not just for Nova to talk to.
> It's for your users to handle their datacenter in the wee hours without
> you to hold their hand. Make that hard, get somebody fired or burned
> out, and no technical argument will ever convince them to use Ironic
> again.
>

Emotions matters yes but that's implicit. Nobody will ever be happy if
something doesn't technically work. So, I'm sure the idea that will be
proposed presents technical challenges and we are a technical
community so let's focus on that.

Cheers,
Lucas



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